Announcement
Collapse
No announcement yet.
Stone-tipped spears predate existence of humans
Collapse
X
-
Remains of the world’s oldest known stone-tipped throwing spears, described in a new paper, and so ancient that they actually predate the earliest known fossils for our species by 85,000 years.
This is garbled, misinterpreted, sensationalist rubbish from Fox News. When they use the term "humans" they are talking about anatomically modern humans (ie Homo sapiens), generally regarded as having reached the evolutionary point of modernity about 200,000 years ago. That's the point at which (up to now) we had the first evidence for complex stone blades from modern humans with flaked edges which were used as spear points.
It doesn't mean that there weren't other, earlier hominid/hominin ancestors of H. sapiens making spear points in earlier times.
Archaeological evidence from Germany documents that wooden spears have been used for hunting since at least 400,000 years ago. A study in 2012 suggests that Homo heidelbergensis may have developed the technology about 500,000 years ago. Those very early spears likely had the ends sharpened and fire-hardened but no lithic tip.
It is however well established that Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis or Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) were making stone spear points from as early as 300,000 years ago. The evidence suggests they were used on short, stout stabbing spears and not thrown as projectiles.I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.
Comment
Comment