The present article—once and for all time—resolves the question of identifying the king of historical martial arts weapons: polearm—spear—or sword. The—longstanding—debate as to what is the sovereign-weapon shall herein be settled; it is not the spearhead ensemble—but find out why.
Part 1 of 2 parts
WEDNESDAY 17TH JUNE 2026 DRAFT NOTICATION
The present article is a draft*; some of the sources required to provide up-to-date information were not available freely online. In order to address this incompletion, a number of our researchers state their intent to repair to their respective libraries.
This is sometimes necessary to gain authorised access to the required documentation for accurate and current information*.
SETTING THE STAGE & PREFACING THE ABSTRACT
There are some in the martial arts community who believe the sovereign weapon to be the spear. The ‘Pleistocene’,
According to the Cambridge English dictionary is:
‘the period of time between around 1.8 million and 11,000 years ago, in which modern humans first appeared, and the Northern Hemisphere experienced an ice age’
This was mentioned as the earliest period to have produced rudimentary examples of these weapons. That is to say: approximately—four to two—hundreds of thousands of years[a,b,c] prior to the publication of the present article.
It should be noted that this spear does not have a shaft that differs from its spearhead regarding material composition. This is a rather significant observation to recollect later in the present article.
4 x 105 years ago to 2 x 105 years ago.*
The references then seem to limit the use of spears to modern humans. However it may be possible that spears were used earlier, even by non-human species, as they are presently[d].
An aside and by way of preface: the age of the universe is some thirteen billion, seven-hundred million years old … Plus or minus two hundred million years.
13.7 x 109 years … Plus or minus 2 x 108 years
Prefacing again, this is: 65.6 million years after the cretaceous mass extinction event—CMEE—to 65.8 million years after CMEE.
It is more suitable to date the weapon with respect to extinction than cosmogenesis; the smaller timescale is more accurate. The uncertainty bounds of 2 x 108 years > the age of 4 x 105 years
The argument favouring the CMEE prehistoric-dating-system is intended for re-publication from its original pre-published articles, in another short-series of articles.
Returning from our aside, and in continuation of the main topic:
Others believe the sword to be the sovereign weapon. The earliest evidence of this tool harks back to three-thousand three-hundred years before the common-era[d,e,f,g,h].
3,300 BCE
Prefacing again: this corresponds to 20,371.5 years from the previous terrestrial rotational axis projection closest approach to—TRAPCAT—Polaris’ triple-stellar-system.
The wobbling—precessing—Earth’s rotational-axis aligns with the aforementioned Polaris-trinary every 25,771.5 times that the Earth orbits its own star—Sol. Hence the present article’s drafting Gregorian year 2026 CE, corresponds to 25,697.5 years from the previous TRAPCAT Polaris.
Kindly note that our systems of dating are not official, but preferential. You could say that we aim to spearhead these ecumenical dating systems for widespread, and ongoing use.
I think that is enough punning for one article, don’t you?
The year—for the present website—begins on the spring equinox on the northern terrestrial hemisphere—from where Polaris can be directly observed.
So, for context: the nearly twenty-six millenia cycle happens to end and restart by coincidence in the year 2100 CE. In other words: that year—shall be, is, was—the dawning of the common era’s twenty-second century within the Gregorian dating system.
Again, we intend to use our adopted dating systems by way of preface in the present article. A more formal introduction and justification of them is due in a later short publication series.
SPEAR OR SWORD: WHICH IS REALLY SUPREME?
The answer: sword.
However, no self-respecting independent thinker would accept the declaration of the previous sentence without suitable justification … This posting’s raison d’etre. Consider a spear whose spearhead or warhead is of the same continuous material as its shaft—from distal-end to proximal-end.
Also consider such a spear being able to maintain a cutting edge during its use in battle. Furthermore, imagine such a weapon additionally being of similar density overall to wood, rather than iron … Such a thing would be king!
However, such a weapon was not widely reported in history, and other weapons exist now that are superior to both spearhead and blade.
SAFETY
From here onwards, the present article is intended to be on the higher brow side of the argument. This level of snobbery has been corporealised so as to exclude certain individuals.
The individuals considered are members of the criminal element who are on the opposite-end of the implied and aforementioned spectrum.
The hope is for knowledge to be more safely transferred to martial arts instructors for their dissemination to students. Also, students reading this article are encouraged to consult their instructors … Additional safety information shall later be discussed herein.
It was upon the approach of the winter equinox 25,696.5 TRAPCAT Polaris that the author decided to self-gift. Christmas was approaching, itself timed for the seasonal change, but these religious festivals hold little sway on the present author.
As earlier discussed, We are interested in what is true and basically consequential. Festivals derived from the emergent phenomena of religion borne from the psyche of one animal species have questionable universal significance.
And yet with that mentioned, in a deterministic universe: all outcomes … Even as trivial and seemingly arbitrary as customs, and trends, could only have occurred in the way that they did.
Already owning an arming sword, I decided to purchase a spearhead or warhead. I settled upon a winged spear, purchased from the Celtic Webstore.
However, I had other matters on my plate. As such, I was not able to fit it and train until the spring-equinox of 25,697.5 TRAPCAT Polaris.
So in the spring of ‘697.5, I purchased a javelin-head, miniaturised targ, and more spearhead warheads—from the Knights Shop.
It was only then that I was in a position to fit them onto shafts, fashioning a number of spears. Fitting, removing, and refitting the spearhead is what began to make me question the claimant’s validity to weapons’ throne.
FAMILIARITY BREEDING
You see, in order to remove a spear from its socket requires one type of ergonomic action. This action would occur when the spearman parries a slashing-blow, or decides to use the spear as a slashing weapon.
We can use the word ‘spearman’ or ‘spearmen’ in terms of documented historical European martial arts, HEMA, at least. Most weapon wielders were depicted as adult male homo sapiens sapiens.
Let us consider the context of the species of the present author and their suspected readers. Given our afterword-analysis, it is more accurate to somehow replace:
The letters ‘man’ or ‘men’ with the term ‘sapient sapient’.
Terminologically: ‘spearman’ could be replaced with ‘sapient sapient spear-wielder’, ‘spear-wielding sapient’, or ‘spear-sapient’ for brevity—yet in the aforementioned homo-sapiens-sapiens context.
Recall that not all spear-weilders are ‘human beings’ or more accurately: homo sapiens sapiens.
The derivation of this logic is more sound than ‘woke’; ultimately, it depends upon the conscious use of the weapon.
The spear at its simplest, is a shaft with a point—which acts as a spearhead for all intents and purposes. So consciousness, intent, purpose, and the aforementioned sapience is more relevant than the sex or gender of the spear’s wielder.
We have of course HEMA’s well known ‘one thirty-three’ or ‘i.33’ with Walpurgis. She is the depiction of a sword-wielding lady in the manuscript from:
1320 CE, or
24,991.5 TRAPCAT Polaris.
We leave the argument for adopted terminology until the end of the present short series of articles. Think of that as more of an afterword, … Necessary for us to proceed with the unfolding of ideas, which is the raison d’etre of our website.
The present website’s hosted articles may be ‘penned’ by different authors, but each one would be considered ‘world-building’ … If the website’s narrative were fictional.
BACK TO BUSINESS:
As I was saying: In order to remove a spear from its socket requires one type of ergonomic action. This action would occur when the sapient spear-wielder parries a slashing-blow—or decides to use the spear as a slashing weapon.
Fasteners such as nails, screws, or bolts, hold a shaft in the socket of a spearhead. However, this does not preclude the warhead loosening upon impact.
The timber of the shaft is typically and comparatively weaker, having a lower yield strength, than steel or even bronze. As such, the aforementioned fastening nails, screws, or bolts would increase recess or hole volume in the timber.
In other words, the holes will get bigger, the fasteners looser—-and the spearhead more likely to detach from the shaft.
Click here for Part 2 of 2 parts ….