All posts tagged: Arrowheads

60,000-year-old poison arrowheads show early humans’ hunting tactics

60,000-year-old poison arrowheads show early humans’ hunting tactics

Published by skeptic

abstraction: An idea or concept, as opposed to a concrete example. chemical: A substance formed from two or more atoms that unite (bond) in a fixed proportion and structure. For example, water is a chemical made when two hydrogen atoms bond to one oxygen atom. Its chemical formula is H2O. Chemical also can be an adjective to describe properties of materials that are the result of various reactions between different compounds. clay: Fine-grained particles of soil that stick together and can be molded when wet. When fired under intense heat, clay can become hard and brittle. That’s why it’s used to fashion pottery and bricks. particle: A minute amount of something. prehistoric: An adjective for something that happened tens of thousands to millions of years ago, periods before people began deliberately recording events. prey: (n.) An organism hunted by another, often for food. (v.) To attack and eat another organism. quartz: A type of mineral made from silicon dioxide. The most common mineral on Earth, it can occur in any rock type: igneous, metamorphic or …

Researchers Find 60,000-Year-Old Poisoned Arrowheads in Africa

Researchers Find 60,000-Year-Old Poisoned Arrowheads in Africa

Published by Jenni Sidey

Researchers from South Africa and Sweden have found traces of poison on 60,000-year-old arrowheads in South Africa. Their discovery, reported by Stockholm University in the journal Science Advances, is the earliest direct evidence of the use of poisoned hunting weapons in the world so far. The oldest poisoned arrowheads known prior to the present study date to approximately 6,700 years ago. The quartz arrowheads were collected from sediment at Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa dated to the Pleistocene age. By analyzing the chemical structure of residue on the arrowheads, researchers identified a poison made from gifbol (Boophone disticha), a plant still used by traditional hunters in the region. Related Articles “[The find] shows that our ancestors in southern Africa not only invented the bow and arrow much earlier than previously thought, but also understood how to use nature’s chemistry to increase hunting efficiency,” says study co-author Marlize Lombard, a researcher at the Palaeo-Research Institute at the University of Johannesburg. Similar poisons have been found arrowheads collected in South Africa in the late 1700s, …