Did Pleistocene Africans use the spearthrower-and-dart (Lombard and Shea, 2021) (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Evolution of Hominin Diets, 2009
Recent analyses of MSA and Middle Paleolithic points suggest that true long-range projectile weaponry -most likely in the form of spearthrower-delivered darts -evolved in Africa sometime between 90-70 ky BP, and was part of the tool kit of modern humans who expanded out of Africa after this time. This possibility has important implications for our understanding of behavior change during the MSA, the evolution of modern human predatory behavior and subsistence strategies, and the nature of the competitive interactions that occurred between modern humans and the archaic humans they encountered on their diaspora from Africa. Research into the origins of projectile weapons can be informed by analyses of the skeletal remains of the prehistoric humans who made and used them, since habitual behavior patterns -especially biomechanically stressful actions like forceful throwing -can be imprinted on the skeleton through both genetic and epigenetic pathways. Previous analyses of humeral diaphyseal geometry in Neandertals and early modern Europeans concluded that habitual, forceful throwing is reflected in the fossil record only after 20 ky BP, suggesting a relatively late origin of projectile weaponry. In contrast, recent work on humeral torsion angles in these same groups reveals some evidence to suggest that throwing-based projectile weaponry was commonly used by the earliest modern Europeans. Other aspects of the skeleton, such as scapular glenoid fossa and ulnar supinator crest morphology, might contain a signature of habitual throwing, but have not yet been examined. Here we analyze variation in scapular and ulnar morphology within and between groups of fossil and recent humans relative to the question of the origins of projectile weaponry. Although the results are not clear-cut, the overall pattern of osteological indicators is consistent with the claim that projectile weapons arose in the African later MSA and moved into Europe in the hands of modern humans.
The bow and arrow in South America
Journal of Anthropological Archaeology, 2023
The bow and arrow is a crucial component of Homo sapiens’ material culture. In South America, data on the bow and arrow are widely scattered, which motived this comprehensive compilation of archaeological, ethnohistoric, and ethnographic information. For millennia prior to the bow’s first appearance, hunters relied on the spearthrower. In the Andes around 1650 BCE (3600 BP), knappers began making much smaller projectile points, but it is unclear whether they were for bows. Later, evidence for bow use is strong and widespread: very small lithic points (~1 cm wide), preserved bows and arrows, and iconography. This evidence is concentrated in two spans: 1) the Middle Horizon (AD 600–1000 or 1350–950 BP) and 2) the Late Intermediate, Inca, and early Colonial Periods, when continental trends in demography and conflict peaked (CE 1200–1620 or 750–330 BP). Ethnographers have documented bow-using groups in all ecoregions around the continent. They have shown that the bow is deeply integrated into masculine identities. Finally, the interplay of this information informs a critical review of current issues. We identify promising avenues for future research, for example, how to improve metric comparisons and whether the bow’s prevalence derives from continental-scale cultural transmission or independent invention.
Indications of bow and stone-tipped arrow use 64 000 years ago in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
The invention of the bow and arrow was a pivotal moment in the human story and its earliest use is a primary quarry of the modern researcher. Since the organic parts of the weapon -wood, bone, cord and feathersvery rarely survive, the deduction that a bow and arrow was in use depends heavily on the examination of certain classes of stone artefacts and their context. Here the authors apply rigorous analytical reasoning to the task, and demonstrate that, conforming to their exacting checklist, is an early assemblage from Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which therefore suggests bow and arrow technology in use there 64 millennia ago.
Bushmen weapons were considered very early by ethnology: the vision of these nomadic hunter-gatherers walking away into the horizon of the Kalahari Desert, with their bows and arrows on their back, is one of the most iconic representations of this disappearing lifestyle. Besides the technical values that were brought into play in the making of this equipment, their role as vector of social values has also been greatly illustrated. It has been shown, in particular, the way in which an arrow creates a link between the hunter and his prey, but also the interactions the arrow conveys between the user of the weapon and the social networks to which he belongs. Nevertheless, most reference systems are based on the equipment of sub-contemporary and current populations, i.e. on those used by groups occupying a limited territory in the Kalahari Desert, straddling Botswana and Namibia. Yet, only a few decades ago, Bushmen occupied much vaster areas, corresponding to a large western half of Southern Africa, involving the exploitation of territories ecologically more contrasted than today. In addition, the socio-economic status of the ancestors of today’s Bushmen was, it seems, more diversified: groups of nomadic hunter gatherers lived side by side with pastoralists (who also practiced hunting), and it is likely that both sides belonged, to a greater or lesser degree, to societies with close links between them. Research works realised on several collections of bows and arrows kept in South African museums and compared with historical sources (travel accounts from the 16th to the 19th centuries in particular), also bring to light greater diversity: the diversity of the actual armoury (the spear, the club and the throwing stick in addition to the bows and arrows); diversity in the way the arrows are actually made; and the diversity of their supposed functions (from hunting to war). Behind such diversity, we can try to grasp the complexity of the recent history of the Bushmen populations.
PaleoAnthropology, 2010
This paper proposes that complex projectile weaponry was a key strategic innovation driving Late Pleistocene human dispersal into western Eurasia after 50 Ka. It argues that complex projectile weapons of the kind used by ethnographic hunter-gatherers, such as the bow and arrow, and spearthrower and dart, enabled Homo sapiens to overcome obstacles that constrained previous human dispersal from Africa to temperate western Eurasia. In the East Mediterranean Levant, the only permanent land bridge between Africa and Eurasia, stone and bone projectile armatures like those used in the complex weapon systems of recent humans appear abruptly ca 45-35 Ka in early Upper Paleolithic contexts associated with Homo sapiens fossils. Such artifacts are absent from Middle Paleolithic contexts associated with Homo sapiens and Neandertals. Hypotheses concerning the indigenous vs. exogenous origins of complex projectile weaponry in the Levant are reviewed. Current evidence favors the hypothesis that complex projectile technology developed as an aid to ecological niche broadening strategies among African populations between 50-100 Ka. It most likely spread to western Eurasia along with dispersing Homo sapiens populations. Neandertals did not routinely deploy projectile weapons as subsistence aids. This puzzling gap in their otherwise impressive record for survival in some of the harshest environments ever occupied by primates may reflect energetic constraints and time-budgeting factors associated with complex technology.
The antiquity of bow-and-arrow technology: evidence from Middle Stone Age layers at Sibudu Cave
2018
The bow and arrow is thought to be a unique development of our species, signalling higher-level cognitive functioning. How this technology originated and how we identify archaeological evidence for it are subjects of ongoing debate. Recent analysis of the putative bone arrow point from Sibudu Cave in South Africa, dated to 61.7±1.5kya, has provided important new insights. High-resolution CT scanning revealed heat and impact damage in both the Sibudu point and in experimentally produced arrow points. These features suggest that the Sibudu point was first used as an arrowhead for hunting, and afterwards was deposited in a hearth. Our results support the claim that bone weapon tips were used in South African hunting long before the Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic.
Bow-and-arrow, technology of the first modern humans in Europe 54,000 years ago at Mandrin, France
Science Advances
Consensus in archaeology has posited that mechanically propelled weapons, such as bow-and-arrow or spear-thrower-and-dart combinations, appeared abruptly in the Eurasian record with the arrival of anatomically and behaviorally modern humans and the Upper Paleolithic (UP) after 45,000 to 42,000 years (ka) ago, while evidence for weapon use during the preceding Middle Paleolithic (MP) in Eurasia remains sparse. The ballistic features of MP points suggest that they were used on hand-cast spears, whereas UP lithic weapons are focused on microlithic technologies commonly interpreted as mechanically propelled projectiles, a crucial innovation distinguishing UP societies from preceding ones. Here, we present the earliest evidence for mechanically propelled projectile technology in Eurasia from Layer E of Grotte Mandrin 54 ka ago in Mediterranean France, demonstrated via use-wear and impact damage analyses. These technologies, associated with the oldest modern human remains currently known ...
The Archaeology Of Archery; Origins
Is there any point in prehistory where we can identify the origin of the bow and arrow? Can we identify a forerunner for the bow and arrow? The bow and arrow was clearly a response to man's changing subsistence pattern long before it became a weapon of defense and offence.