A new study, published in the journal PNAS, has identified how pre-Homo sapiens re-sharpened broken points of spears and throwing sticks, in addition to using specialist techniques such as “wood splitting”.
By applying the latest imaging techniques such as 3D microscopy and micro-CT scanning, archaeologists from the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage (NLD), and the Universities of Reading and Göttingen, analysed 300,000-year-old hunting weapons found in Schöningen, Germany.
The Schöningen site is an open-cast lignite mine which was excavated between 1994 and 1999. Archaeologists suggest that the site was a hunting ground on a lakeshore during the palaeolithic period. The excavations took place under the management of Hartmut Thieme of the NLD.
Dr Dirk Leder, from NLD, said: “There is evidence of much more extensive and varied procedures of spruce and pine woodworking than previously thought. Selected roundwoods were worked into spears and throwing sticks and brought to the site, while broken tools were repaired and recycled on-site.”
According to the researchers, over twenty spears and throwing sticks were among the weapons and tools found during archaeological excavations at the Schöningen site. The wide range of woodworking techniques demonstrates the importance of wood as a raw material 300,000 years ago, a time when the planet was at the end of a warm interglacial period.
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Dr Annemieke Milks, from the University of Reading, said: “What surprised us was the high number of point and shaft fragments coming from spears and throwing sticks that were previously unpublished. The way the wooden tools were so expertly manufactured was a revelation to us.”
Header Image Credit : Volker Minkus/MINKUSIMAGES, NLD
Sources : Dirk Leder et al. The wooden artifacts from Schöningen’s Spear Horizon and their place in human evolution. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2320484121
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