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Pablo Martínez-Juarez
WriterEnvironmental economist and science journalist. For a few years, I worked as a researcher on the economics of climate change adaptation. Now I write about that and much more.
Karen Alfaro
WriterCommunications professional with a decade of experience as a copywriter, proofreader, and editor. As a travel and science journalist, I've collaborated with several print and digital outlets around the world. I'm passionate about culture, music, food, history, and innovative technologies.
It’s no secret that some of the species that preceded Homo sapiens could not only use tools but also design and manufacture them. And this doesn’t apply only to our close relatives in the genus Homo, such as Neanderthals or Homo erectus. Millions of years ago, our ancestors were already carving stones in Africa.
A Neanderthal tool. Recently, researchers discovered that a bone spear tip—the oldest ever found in Europe—was made by a group of Neanderthals. Dating places its creation between 80,000 and 70,000 years ago, well before the arrival of Homo sapiens on the continent.
Although various studies have shown that Neanderthals (like other early human species) could make and use tools, scientists generally believed Neanderthals used only stone as the primary material. The use of bone as a raw material was thought to be a later “invention” of sapiens.
2003. The subject of this discovery is a bone spear tip found in 2003 in Mezmaiskaya Cave in Russia’s North Caucasus region. The bone likely belonged to a large animal, such as a bison.
Before our arrival. The team behind the new study concluded that European Neanderthals developed this technology independently, before coming into contact with our species during the Upper Paleolithic. However, they noted that the use of bone-tipped weapons was still at a “nascent level” compared to the tools later introduced to Eurasia by Homo sapiens.
Bituminous residue. In addition to the bone, the team examined the adhesive used to attach the tip to the spear’s body. Using a variety of methods—including infrared microscopy and spectroscopy—they analyzed the bituminous residue likely used to bond the weapon. Their findings indicate the spearhead was mounted on a wooden shaft.
The researchers published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
A key transition. Although many now recognize that Neanderthals were a species with reasoning abilities comparable to Homo sapiens, the notion that they always followed in the wake of modern humans is hard to shake. While the arrival of modern humans brought significant changes to prehistoric Europe, it remains difficult to determine when those shifts came from knowledge transfer and when Neanderthals developed technologies independently.
One example is glue. Neanderthals created composite adhesives for their tools, rather than relying solely on simple glues such as bitumen.
However, this isn’t limited to Neanderthals. A recent study at one of the oldest known archaeological sites in Africa—Olduvai—revealed evidence of bone tool use more than a million years ago, long before the emergence of Homo sapiens.
Image | Paul Hudson
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