User blog comment:Withersoul/How would man have fought against the grim before using dust?/@comment-10390252-20130902144144

Literally with anything they could lay their hands on. The prologue shows two figures equipped with simple wooden clubs. However, I'm sure that bone, stone, bronze, iron and even steel might have been used. I consider it probable that Aura might also have been discovered early on in the struggle to find something, anything to hold back the Dark Tide.

The problem is that it would have been a loosing struggle against the physical strength, toughness and numbers of the Grimm until the power of Dust was available to turn spears into thunderbolts and swords into firestorm generators.