I know… you’re thinking, “Caltrops? WHAT THE HECK IS A CALTROP??? And why is David The Good still going on and on about weird ancient weapons? Even on this beautiful Monday? When will he talk about gardening again!” Don’t worry… I’m almost done. I’ll get back to plants soon. If things collapse, you’re gonna have to protect your watermelons, right? Right!

The caltrop is a wicked little antipersonnel device which, unlike bows and atlatls, is a defensive rather than offensive weapon.

A caltrop is simply a multi-pointed metal star which, when thrown on the ground, will always have at least one spike sticking upwards.

Ouch!

Originally developed millennia ago to defeat horses, chariots and soldiers, the caltrop is now quite handy in knocking out automobiles and other vehicles with pneumatic tires.

They’re even sold as “road stars” on Amazon.

If civilization collapsed and you wanted to close off your neighborhood to vehicular traffic, why go through all the trouble of creating an old-fashioned pile of burning tires? Just go ahead and make some of these babies out of welded nails, cut off the heads and sharpen all the points and you’ll be knocking out cars of gangbangers in no time.

Then you can pick them off with your 50-cent arrows.

In addition to tires, caltrops also wreck feet. These would be really effective if scattered on paths leading to your property… you’d just have to remember where they were and NOT let your kids play there. If used, it would really only be a good idea to deploy caltrops in an emergency or in an area where there are already plenty of “no trespassing” signs to warn off mushroom hunters or birdwatchers. They would be like leaving land mines behind.

And again, ouch.

If you were out of town, you could also put ’em on your driveway to defend from thieves (or at least get some payback).

Caltrops are mean, mean, mean.

And with that, I conclude my main set of posts on primitive weaponry.

Though I may sneak one more post in on the topic since I just got this in the mail today:

Latex surgical tubing. Very strong and stretchy.

What in the WORLD could one make with that?