# Ancient weapons and tools made from sea life and other coastal resources



## Swordfry (Mar 17, 2015)

Sorry for the long title, lol. 

One of my main races in my fictional world is a humanoid race that is segregated to only living along the coasts of the main continent. They live mostly on beaches and cliffs found along the coast. I have some pretty good ideas as to what their tools and weapons could be and look like, but I am having a terrible time finding good pictures and descriptions of ancient gear like this, made out of only coastal resources. Weapons and tools made mostly out of the remains of sea life, like bones, teeth, stingers, shells (like sea shells AND shells from crustaceans). I imagine some items could be made out of some beach grass and trees. I honestly have no clue if beach grass is real or not, but I'm making it real in my world, lol.

For anyone curious, in my fictional world, the sea life can be pretty terrifying, and a few species of very large (cow-sized) crustaceans are actually at the top of the sea food chain, just under very rare shark-like creatures. So really gear made from shells and exoskeletons of these crustaceans is pretty common.


But yeah, I just need some good pictures and descriptions of tools and weapons made from materials like this. Any help would be greatly appreciated for a little bit of inspiration.


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## Guy (Mar 17, 2015)

Various Pacific islander cultures made weapons with such resources. Their swords were essentially wooden paddles edged with shark teeth. Given the creatures you could populate your world with, there is a good deal of potential. This might be a good starting point:
https://wiki.ucl.ac.uk/display/BBCo...ic+Analysis+of+a+Kiribati+Shark-Toothed+Sword

And beach grass is real. I know there's something called sea oats, I think. The Gulla culture in South Carolina makes baskets from some type of grass that grows on their beaches.


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## psychotick (Mar 18, 2015)

Hi,

This might help. It's the online photos of the Te Papa collection.

Search - maori weapons | Collections Online - Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

Cheers, Greg.


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## Swordfry (Apr 6, 2015)

psychotick said:


> Hi,
> 
> This might help. It's the online photos of the Te Papa collection.
> 
> ...


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## stephenspower (Apr 7, 2015)

If your world has ships and sea trade, they might also scavenge stuff from wrecks.


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## X Equestris (Apr 7, 2015)

It's not sea based, but depending on where your people live, obsidian or flint might work as well.  

As for armor, I can't think of any examples of armor from island peoples, who would have been the ones using sea life based weaponry.  If these people have livestock or hunt, you could use leather armor.  There are also cloth armors.


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## Swordfry (Apr 7, 2015)

stephenspower said:


> If your world has ships and sea trade, they might also scavenge stuff from wrecks.



No, they are not very big on sea trade. I would not call this race a seafaring one. They have made some sea worthy vessels, but mostly for hunting and fishing. They're really pretty content staying along the coast. Not to mention there is no current islands or other continents close enough for them to reach by sea. So they would really just be encountering other groups of their same race along the coastline, lol. Sorry I didn't make this clear from the start.


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## Swordfry (Apr 7, 2015)

X Equestris said:


> As for armor, I can't think of any examples of armor from island peoples, who would have been the ones using sea life based weaponry.  If these people have livestock or hunt, you could use leather armor.  There are also cloth armors.



Hmm. Maybe.

This is going to sound a little out there, but I really want to incorporate different types of sea shells, exoskeleton parts from my giant crustaceans, and maybe even coral into this race's arms and armor. I know that at best a lot of this would make for gear that's only good for a few hits, but that's okay. The idea is that these materials are plentiful, so replacing spikey, jagged shells on one's club for a makeshift mace would be no big deal. Heck, I may even come up with some bizarre, fictional way to work these materials into more usable items. After all, my series is going to be _science fantasy_ anyways, so why not, lol.


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## Ireth (Apr 7, 2015)

Swordfry said:


> Hmm. Maybe.
> 
> This is going to sound a little out there, but I really want to incorporate different types of sea shells, exoskeleton parts from my giant crustaceans, and maybe even coral into this race's arms and armor. I know that at best a lot of this would make for gear that's only good for a few hits, but that's okay. The idea is that these materials are plentiful, so replacing spikey, jagged shells on one's club for a makeshift mace would be no big deal. Heck, I may even come up with some bizarre, fictional way to work these materials into more usable items. After all, my series is going to be _science fantasy_ anyways, so why not, lol.



I've done something similar with my merfolk. They use pieces of fire coral in their weaponry, as well as narwhal tusks and such. It's fun to brainstorm about. ^^


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