Archaeologists identify spear tips used in hunting a half-million years ago

Phys.Org ^ | Provided by University of Toronto

[Red Badger]

A University of Toronto-led team of anthropologists has found evidence that human ancestors used stone-tipped weapons for hunting 500,000 years ago – 200,000 years earlier than previously thought.

"This changes the way we think about early human adaptations and capacities before the origin of our own species," says Jayne Wilkins, a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto and lead author of a new study in Science. "Although both Neandertals and humans used stone-tipped spears, this is the first evidence that the technology originated prior to or near the divergence of these two species," says Wilkins. Attaching stone points to spears – known as 'hafting' – was an important advance in hunting weaponry for early humans. Hafted tools require more effort and foreplanning to manufacture, but a sharp stone point on the end of a spear can increase its killing power. Hafted spear tips are common in Stone Age archaeological sites after 300,000 years ago. This new study shows that they were also used in the early Middle Pleistocene, a period associated with Homo heidelbergensis and the last common ancestor of Neandertals and modern humans.

"It now looks like some of the traits that we associate with modern humans and our nearest relatives can be traced further back in our lineage", Wilkins says. Wilkins and colleagues from Arizona State University and the University of Cape Town examined 500,000-year-old stone points from the South African archaeological site of Kathu Pan 1 and determined that they had functioned as spear tips. Point function was determined by comparing wear on the ancient points to damage inflicted on modern experimental points used to spear a springbok carcass target with a calibrated crossbow. This method has been used effectively to study weaponry from more recent contexts in the Middle East and southern Africa. The stone points exhibit certain types of breaks that occur more commonly when they are used to tip spears compared to other uses.

"The archaeological points have damage that is very similar to replica spear points used in our spearing experiment," says Wilkins. "This type of damage is not easily created through other processes." The findings are reported in the paper "Evidence for Early Hafted Hunting Technology" published in the November 16, 2012 issue of Science. Other authors contributing to the study are Benjamin Schoville from Arizona State University, Kyle Brown of the University of Cape Town, and University of Toronto archaeologist Michael Chazan. Funding for the research was provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, the National Science Foundation, and the Hyde Family Foundation. Logistical support came from the South African Heritage Resources Agency and the McGregor Museum, Kimberley, South Africa. The points were recovered during 1979-1982 excavations by Peter Beaumont of the McGregor Museum. In 2010, a team directed by Chazan reported that the point-bearing deposits at Kathu Pan 1 dated to ~500,000 years ago using optically stimulated luminescence and U-series/electron spin resonance methods.

The dating analyses were carried out by Naomi Porat, Geological Survey of Israel, and Rainer Grün, Australian National University.

Journal reference: Science

[Red Badger]

This is a ~500,000-year-old point from Kathu Pan 1. Multiple lines of evidence from a University of Toronto-led study indicate that points from Kathu Pan 1 were used as hafted spear tips. Scale bar = 1 cm. Credit: Jayne Wilkins

These are examples of experimental hafted points from a University of Toronto-led study. Points were hafted to wooden dowels using Acacia resin and sinew and then thrust into a springbok carcass target using a calibrated crossbow. The Kathu Pan 1 archaeological points show a similar pattern of edge damage to these experimental points. Credit: Jayne Wilkins

This is a mounted crossbow used for spearing experiments in a University of Toronto-led study that showed that ~500,000-year-old points from Kathu Pan 1 were used as hafted spear tips. Credit: Benjamin Schoville

[Red Badger]

GGG Ping!.............

[Charles Henrickson]

Archaeologists identify spear tips used in hunting a half-million years ago

Oh, why not make it three million years ago? Or sixteen million? As long as we're making up numbers, why not shoot for the moon? A billion years ago!

All these dating guesses are based on a very shaky presuppositon: i.e., that the method used for dating would hold true all the way back to the beginning, that nothing intervened to skew the data and thus make the methodology suspect, and that there could be no other explanation possible for the data observed.

[Beowulf9]

Not trying to call into question their methods of study, but what? They are using a calibrated crossbow to study how the points break?

I spent many a day as a young girl trying to throw a spear, being a young girl I obviously was flawed but I did learn something from that, besides the fact that I didn’t have the strength to stay alive from spear kills...it’s very hard to throw a spear straight. Even when the shaft is very straight, it’s like golf, every inflection of your muscle movement affects the trajectory and the shaft definitely hasn’t a straight line. In fact some of the weight of the shaft is different at different portions of it, affecting it’s direction.

How can a machine tell them what the results of a man thrown spear would be...and I say man because I already know, a girl couldn’t kill a rabbit with it for a few months, but hey, it’s nice to be thin;)

[Red Badger]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atl-atl

[Red Badger]

The base of the dart is carefully located on the spur of the atlatl, so that it can rotate during launch

[dead]

I understand carbon dating and all that, but I never understand this part:

They know how old the rock is, but how do they know when the rock became an arrowhead?

And they know how to date the surrounding soil, but how do they know when something came to reside in that soil? When did humans first invent burying stuff?

[Americanexpat]

I know what you mean. I ince had one of those ball and cap Pennsylvania rifles and I used to practice with it. Found out that if I had lived back in the day I0d have probaly starved to death.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Did they verify these theories with Helen Thomas or Madonna or other people who are 500,000 years old?

[Sacajaweau]

Maybe look at spears more as a hand to hand tool. I’ve seen people spear fish. Why not other critters.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Krog say woman not that tall. Shadow is trick.

[Red Badger]

I assume that the arrowheads were embedded in some organic material that could be reliably dated, but carbon dating is good only for about 50k years. After that you have to use some other method..............

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dating

[DennisR]

It’s because a “scientist” said so!

[SpinnerWebb]

Brog say hairy woman in back keep you warmer in winter...

[Sacajaweau]

I’m always screaming about this “dating” bit with the same logic. In 1989, I was on a lonely road in Virginia, got out and with real mason tools, carved 1789 and initials in an old boulder just a bit off the road....I would love it if someone defined the initials and date someday...and it got a big write up.

[DesertRhino]

And you can’t date rock. The points can only be aged by associating them with things around them, often charcoal from campfires, etc.
Association has to be done with extreme care because campsites are found in the same places, for the same reasons, from wildly differing eras.

Sometimes you get lucky, like the guy who found the first Folsom point embedded in the bone of an extinct species of Bison. But thats rare.

[From The Deer Stand]

Save these spear tips. The way the obama economy is going we may need them.

[Red Badger]

We can make more...............

[marktwain]

I’m always screaming about this “dating” bit with the same logic.

Stones are very hard to date directly. They are likely dating them from the layer they are imbedded in. If you look at the positions and how they were documented and found, you could make a determination if they had a good case or not.

[DesertRhino]

I know what you mean. I ince had one of those ball and cap Pennsylvania rifles and I used to practice with it. Found out that if I had lived back in the day I0d have probaly starved to death.

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/hns/indians/offense.html

Mark Twain wrote about the outlandish and ridiculous claims of frontier markmanship by the pioneers. You might enjoy it.