FORT COLLINS, COLORADO—According to a Science News report, biological anthropologist Michael Pante of Colorado State University and his colleagues found an 800,000-year-old barbed point among 52 animal bones recovered from East Africa’s Olduvai Gorge in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The unfinished implement, which features three curved barbs and a carved tip, was crafted from a piece of a large animal’s rib. The set of animal bones also included choppers, hammering tools, and hammering platforms. These tools are similar to those found at other sites with Homo erectus fossils, and are therefore thought to have been made by Homo erectus. But because the barbed bone point is unfinished, it is unclear how the hominins might have used it. It had been previously thought that barbed bone points were first made by Homo sapiens some 90,000 years ago, based upon artifacts uncovered in central Africa. The bases of these finished weapons suggest they had been attached to wooden shafts, perhaps to catch fish and hunt larger land animals. For more on the first human species to migrate out of Africa, go to "Homo erectus Stands Alone," one of ARCHAEOLOGY's Top 10 Discoveries of 2013.
