Posted on 10/11/2010 6:38:35 AM PDT by Red Badger
Researchers in Germany have unearthed 400,000 year old wooden spears from what appears to be an ancient lake shore hunting ground stunning evidence that human ancestors systematically hunted big game much earlier than believed. The three spears, each carved from the trunk of a spruce tree, are 6 feet to more than 7 feet long. They were found with more than 10,000 animal bones, mostly from horses, including many obviously butchered. That indicates the ancient hunters were organized enough to trap horses and strong enough to kill them by throwing spears, perhaps ambushing herds that showed up for water.
“There’s no question if you are hunting a group of horses coming along a lake, you must be strong. You have to plan it. You have to organize it,” said archeologist Hartmut Thieme, whose crew made the discovery. The spears, found as researchers worked one step ahead of an expanding coal mine, skewer the idea that humans at that time depended on scavenging and foraging, experts said. “What it’s telling us is these people were very sophisticated, competent hunters,” said Robin Dennell, a professor of prehistory at the University of Sheffield in England. “They were perfectly capable of long-term planning and foresight.” And “they must have been awfully strong, far stronger than I am. Those spears are longer than I am.”
Before the new find, there had been some evidence of systematic hunting about 200,000 years ago. The spears are twice that old. In addition, some researchers have argued that such hunting didn’t truly begin until about 40,000 years ago. Thieme, who works for the state of Lower Saxony in Germany, reported his crew’s discoveries last week in the journal Nature. He and colleagues had found the spears in 1995 near Schoeningen, about 60 miles southeast of Hanover. Since the Nature paper was written, his crew has come across pieces of a fourth spear. The spears were obviously made with care. After chopping down an appropriate tree and stripping off the bark and branches, the ancient hunters carved the tip at the base of the trunk, where the wood is hardest.
The spears were shaped to be thickest toward the front with a long tapering tail, like modern javelins, which suggests they were meant for throwing rather than jabbing. After all that work “they’re not going to throw it at a squirrel in a dark night,” said Dennell, who wrote a Nature commentary on the spears. “These people were serious about hunting.”
Frank Herrold, an anthropologist at the University of Texas at Arlington , said the spears will have to be studied further to establish that they were really meant to be thrown. The hunters, called archaic Homo sapiens or Homo heidelbergensis, were distant ancestors of Neanderthals. They hunted in a cool climate like that of central Norway today. They sought game in a landscape of large meadows with spruce and birch trees. A few of their spears were preserved over the eons because they were waterlogged , a rare stroke of luck, noted F. Clark Howell, emeritus professor of paleoanthropology at the University of California at Berkeley
“This finding demonstrates what a few people have guessed at . . . that we’re dealing with a hunting people, that hunting is an important part of their lives,” he said.
Additional info
Radiocarbon dating has confirmed that three wooden spears found in a coal mine in Schöningen, near Hannover, Germany, are the oldest complete hunting weapons ever found. Some 380,000 to 400,000 years old, the six- to 7.5-foot javelins were found in soil whose acids had been neutralized by a high concentration of chalk near the coal pit.
And what about this?
Thousands of pieces of horse, elephant, and deer bone were also found at Schöningen. The bones showed cut marks from stone flints found with grooved wooden tools that probably held the flints. If Thieme can prove the flints were hafted in the wooden tools, they will be the oldest known composite tools in the world.
This is also strange!
The Clacton lance tip suggested that people may have been hunting; the three spears from Schöningen now make it fairly certain that they were not merely scavenger-gatherers. That early man hunted big game is supported by the recent discovery of a fossilized rhinoceros shoulder blade with a projectile wound at Boxgrove, England, dated to 500,000 years ago.
But he was. Heck, Al Gore invented hunting, then he invented the internet.
Ridiculous!
Everyone knows Neanderthals were snowboarders...
That graphic is from Answers in Genesis.
I wonder whinny figured out how to ride one.
Cro-Magnon
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The original "Old man of Crô-Magnon", Musée de l'Homme, ParisThe Cro-Magnon (pronounced /kroʊˈmæɡnÉ™n/, French [kÊomaɲɔ̃]) were the first early modern humans (early Homo sapiens sapiens) of the European Upper Paleolithic in Europe.
The earliest known remains of Cro-Magnon-like humans are radiometrically dated to 35,000 years before present.
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
in local libraries
bump for later
It could be they might have warped a bit over the last few hundred thousand years. :-)
Probably both hunting and opportunistic scavenging took place. Even chimps have been observed in the wild cooperatively hunting. I'm sure early man has been using sharp sticks since he learned to stand upright. As to when man learned to carve a sharp point on the end of a stick.......I'm guessing way earlier than 400,000 years ago.
“It could be they might have warped a bit over the last few hundred thousand years. :-)”
I’ve become pretty warped in less than 60 years so it’s certainly possible. For what it’s worth the “experts” say that Neanderthal had thick shout bodies and were very strong (built like a fireplug with feet), and likely to have been ambush predators. Also those spears look like they were made from a six or 7 ft tree branch with a sharpened end. Even if thrown by a very strong arm I doubt it would penetrate very deeply into a horse.
“chopping down an appropriate tree and stripping off the bark and branches, the ancient hunters carved the tip at the base of the trunk”
Sounds like a tent pole.
“..I doubt it would penetrate very deeply into a horse.”
The tip can be sharpened quite a bit, and when properly hardened in a low fire or bed of coals, becomes even harder.
Not iron, but very hard.
The actual point only has to have an angle of about 45 degrees to achieve maximum effectiveness, so the tip of the spear could be nearly an inch in thickness.
Once hardened, it will easily pierce flesh and crack bones.
The spear is not a javelin, meant for throwing long distance, it is meant for close distance and when possible for hands on thrusting.
The thrust is where this type of spear is most effective.
I could penetrate a (soft) vital area 6 to 8 inches, and someone like early man or neanderthal could probably embed such a weapon a foot or more.
Why would you need a tent pole in a cave?...............
I thought we all just left Africa 70,000 years ago...
The capitalists left a lot earlier...............
hunting parties, excess population living outside, maybe the cave roof dripped?
Actually it just sounded like a tent pole to me.
You could be right, anyway.
We may not be absolutely sure that they are spears.
IIRC, some spears were found somewhere else in Europe, in a similar situation. They had their wooden tips “hardened” by burning them a little, to drive out the moisture and making the wood very hard and dry. Then the blackened burned parts were scraped down to the dried wood and formed into a very sharp point.
Of course these 400k spears may have been from an older technology ( before they discovered fire?) ............
Your chart makes it look like there was no genus homo between erectus and modern man. There seems to be a gap.
Just WOW! Speaking as a former artifact hunter, I would love to find something like this.
“The hunters, called archaic Homo sapiens or Homo heidelbergensis”
I thought archaic Homo sapiens didn’t emerge until 100,000 B.C. in Africa and Homo antecessor preceeded Homo hiedelbergensis who preceded Homo neanderthalensis.
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