Photo: P. Wojtal
Posted on 01/09/2019 12:41:48 AM PST by SunkenCiv
In the ice age, the inhabitants of today`s Europe were hunting mammoths with javelins. The first direct evidence of this is a fragment of a 25,000 years old flint head discovered in Kraków, stuck in a mammoth rib... archaeologists have discovered the remains of at least 110 mammoths from approx. 25,000 years ago.
"Among tens of thousands of bones, during a detailed analysis of the remains, I came across a damaged mammoth rib. It turned out that a fragment of a flint arrowhead was stuck in it. This is the first such find from the Ice Age in Europe!" - told PAP Dr. Piotr Wojtal from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals PAS in Kraków...
Wojtal reminds that the scientific community has been discussing for years how our ancestors killed mammoths. According to some researchers, these animals were killed by trickery - chasing them to the pits or towards bluffs, from which they would fall. Others say that people focused on weaker or sick animals. Some think that mammoths were hunted.
"We finally have a +smoking gun+, the first direct evidence of how these animals were hunted" - notes the archaeozoologist.
So far, similar finds are known only from two Siberian sites.
The bone with the flint blade was discovered already in 2002. Since bone damage is small, it was only discovered in February 2018 during detailed archaeozoological analyses. During this research, each of tens of thousands of bone fragments is carefully inspected.
The blade fragment preserved in the bone is only 7 mm long. Scientists believe that it is a flint tip broken off at the moment of driving a spear into the body of a mammoth.
(Excerpt) Read more at scienceinpoland.pap.pl ...
Photo: P. Wojtal
Huh?
Is this really the first evidence? I thought there had been evidence earlier.
That must have been one hell of a spit...
Couple in Siberia and a couple in America that are dated to about half of what this one is dated. But apparently this is the first found in what is geographic “Europe” rather than “Asia” like the Siberian finds.
I guess the bones were that age not the flint. Can you even carbon date flint?
“Can you even carbon date flint?”
The arrowheads have a tint patent number on them. They’re easy to miss though.
That is probably the weirdest non-sequitur ever posted on FR.
Hahahahahahaha...I clicked on this to say “There is, with great certainty, going to be a Far Side cartoon in this thread...”
Love it.
Hahahahahahahahaha...that was my first thought as well!
“Hugh?”
For some reason, it made me think of the Ungh undead thread!
Baby space alien...
Those guys had mammoths sized balls to hunt mammoth with sticks and arrows.
It would be cool to be a biblical paleologist and find that elusive T-Rex with a spear in its side
Talut ?
The poor critter just fell on a sharp piece of rock and now they ae blaming some guy shooting arrows in his back yard on the injury.
“We finally have a +smoking gun+, the first direct evidence of how these animals were hunted”
Saw what! FIRST EVIDENCE? I had a Time-Life book from fifty years ago showing Homo Erectus hunting mammoths in Europe long before this! It even had photos of the dig. It was SETTLED SCIENCE! A disbeliever was considered a science Heretic!
So which is it? Were mammoths hunted thousands of years earlier, or later.
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