48,000-year-old arrowheads reveal early human innovation in the Sri Lankan rainforest | Australasian Science Magazine
M. C. Langley/Shutterstock/The Discussion
Archaeological excavations deep within the rainforests of Sri Lanka have unearthed the earliest evidence for hunting with bows and arrows outside Africa.
At Fa-Hien Lena, a collapse the heart of Sri Lanka’s damp zone forests, we discovered many tools made of stone, bone, and tooth– including a variety of small arrow points carved from bone which are about 48,000 years of ages.
When was the weapon developed?
The innovation of the weapon allowed individuals to hunt prey at a much higher range. Individuals no longer needed to get within “a stone’s toss” of prey which might unexpectedly bolt and escape. This development significantly increased the possibilities of an effective hunt.
Bows and arrows likewise made it much safer to hunt dangerous victim. If you don’t have to get too close, you’re less most likely to be squashed or mauled by a hurt and mad animal.
The origin of the bow and arrow is one of the fantastic secrets of human technological innovation. How did it happen? When? Where? And why?
Presently, the oldest evidence for the use of the weapon are little stone points found in Sibudu cave in South Africa, which are some 64,000 years old.
Outside Africa, the earliest finds were formerly pieces of bows discovered in Germany dating back no more than 18,000 years.
Because weapons are mainly made from extremely disposable things like wood, sinew, and fibres, they do not leave a lot of proof behind for archaeologists to find. So the small bone points recuperated from Fa-Hien Lena are an essential discovery.
The bone points show evidence for having actually been repaired to a little shaft and shot at high speed into prey– which were obviously mostly little monkeys and giant squirrels, evaluating by the butchered bones discarded at the website after meals.
M. C. Langley
Complex tools, complicated minds
The discovery of such ancient bone arrow points is surprising in itself. We also discovered other tools which provide equally unusual insights into the lives of the earliest members of our species presently recorded in Sri Lanka.
Especially interesting are well-preserved knives, scrapers, and awls made from the bones and teeth of monkeys and deer, which were utilized to work skins or plant materials.
These tools are our only way to learn more about the other, more vulnerable items that may initially have been at the site, because anything made from leather or plant fiber (such as clothing, bags, baskets, mats, or nets) stood no possibility of making it through 48,000 years in the humid tropical environment.
M. C. Langley
One of these artefacts is an unusual execute with carefully spaced notches down each side. It seems a shuttle bus for creating webs of woven fibers. No doubt nets would have been incredibly beneficial for catching the tree-dwelling victim individuals of Fa-Hien Lena hunted, in addition to bringing the fish up from the rivers.
M. C. Langley
These rain forests leaders also left proof about their social lives in the type of white shell beads and small blocks of mineral pigments in bright colours: red, yellow, and silver.
Each of the pigment nodules show signs they were used to produce paints for the body, and 3 of the brilliant red blemishes were drilled to be strung as beads– something we have actually not found anywhere else worldwide.
The white shell beads, on the other hand, resemble those found in Africa and Eurasia, however were gathered or traded from the coast some 20– 30 kilometres away. Apparently, little, glossy, white shell beads never ever get old.
With these finds, it is becoming more and more clear that we have only just started to scratch the surface area when it comes to understanding the earliest modern human communities.
Michelle Langley is an Elder Research Fellow in the Australian Research Study Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University, Brisbane.
Patrick Roberts gets financing from limit Planck Society and European Research Study Council.
Oshan Wedage does not work for, speak with, own shares in or receive funding from any business or company that would benefit from this post, and has revealed no pertinent associations beyond their scholastic consultation.
Initially published in The Conversation.