Indian carpenters always had a drill with large spindle around which a long rope is wound. A person pulls the rope back and forth spinning the drill. Another person holds the drill in position using a flat wood piece at the top with small hole to hold the drill axle.
Same technique is also used for spinning a wooden churner to get butterfat out of curd. A standing woman would pull the rope back and forth for a few minutes on the long churner stick that is churning the curd in a clay pot placed on the floor.
> always
Can you be more specific here? In an article about civilization 5300 years ago, where India has had a human population for at least 65,000 years, saying "always" is fairly vague
Sorry I was referring to mechanical techniques of spinning a drill in general, that I'm familiar with, in addition to the bow method described. I was not referring to any time scale.
I want to be as polite as possible, but explain the confusion that timerol was experiencing, just in case it was unclear. Because the article's focus is about the oldest "sophisticated drilling tool", and your comment said "Indian carpenters always had ...", the implication is that you're disagreeing with the article being discussed. The information you share is interesting, but it's slightly off topic from the main point of discussion (ie, the age of sophisticated tooling). You can avoid confusion like this by explicitly acknowledging when you're going to go off-topic. Eg, you could say "Not related to the age of the tool, but I saw similar tools used in India -- Indian carpenters always had..." I hope that explanation is polite and maybe helpful :). Apologies if I over-explained.
Somewhat relevant: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_principle