Stone Age harpoon found on Pacific island

[Coyotl]

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/stone-age-harpoon-found-pacific-island

Stone Age harpoon found on Pacific island
Carved bone points to ancient, complex hunting weapons near Indonesia
by Bruce Bower January 21, 2014


HUNTING NOTCHES An ancient piece of carved bone (both sides shown) was probably the base of a harpoon point that inhabitants of Timor attached to a wooden shaft. The artifact is slightly less than one inch long and about one-half inch wide.

A 35,000-year-old piece of carved bone found on Timor, an island between Java and Papua New Guinea, indicates that complex hunting weapons were manufactured much earlier than previously thought in Australasia.

A team led by archaeologist Sue O’Connor of Australian National University in Canberra has unearthed, in a project that began in 2000, what it regards as the broken butt of a bone harpoon point. Three closely spaced notches were carved on each side of the artifact, above a shaft that tapers to a rounded bottom.

Wear on the notches and residue of a sticky substance close to the bottom suggest the point was tied and glued to a slot on the side of a wooden handle or inserted into a split hollow shaft, the researchers report January 15 in the Journal of Human Evolution.

Stone Age islanders threw spears from boats at large fish and other sea prey, O’Connor proposes.

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[BlancheSplanchnik]

1. cool!

35,000 years old...... *awed and speechless*

[rickyhall]

2. That's 25,000 years older the teaparty earth!

Or not

[Coyotl]

3. Small heads are exploding

[loudsue]

4. I wonder if they found the rest of the tackle box.

Just kidding....

[Judi Lynn]

5. Great news! Thanks. n/t