13,900-YEAR-OLD SPEAR TIP FOUND EMBEDDED IN MASTODON REMAINS

FEBRUARY 11, 2023, 11:00 AM ET

A mastodon bone with a spear tip in it provides the earliest evidence of bone projectiles in North America.

By Cassidy Ward


FEBRUARY 11, 2023, 11:00 AM ET
13,900-YEAR-OLD SPEAR TIP FOUND EMBEDDED IN MASTODON REMAINS
A mastodon bone with a spear tip in it provides the earliest evidence of bone projectiles in North America.

By Cassidy Ward

Anatomically modern humans emerged in Africa roughly 300,000 years ago, but we didn’t start recording our activities until just 5,000 years ago. More than 98% of our total history has been lost to time, the only evidence that they happened at all trapped in bones or artifacts left behind. For the most part, we’re left to imagine what life might have been like in the deep past through stories like The Croods: Family Tree (now streaming on Peacock).

The series places viewers in the shoes of a prehistoric family more like us than we might have suspected. They work together to gather enough food, defend their home, and survive, all while looking for a better tomorrow. Certainly, life isn’t easy now, but it was a different kind of difficult back then. Sure, you didn’t have to pay rent, but the only way to get a burger was to chase it down with a spear.

With each new archaeological discovery, we fill in the gaps of our own story a little more, and we’re discovering that things got appreciably easier when groups of humans began developing tools and weapons. Of particular interest, both to ancient humans and the scientists who study them, are projectile weapons which extended hunting range and allowed hunting parties to tackle potentially dangerous game from a moderately safer distance.

Precisely when that started to happen in the Americas has been a matter of some debate, but the recent study of a mastodon bone from a site in Washington state provides the earliest evidence to date of bone projectiles in North America. Michael Waters from the Department of Anthropology at Texas A&M University, and colleagues, studied a 13,900-year-old mastodon rib with a projectile point embedded in it. Their findings were published in the journal Science Advances.

More:
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/early-bone-projectile-preserved-in-mastodon-rib-bone