New Evidence Suggests Humans May Have Used Bows and Arrows Earlier Than Expected

OBI-RAKHMAT, UZBEKISTAN—Astonishing new evidence from the Obi-Rakhmat cave shelter in Uzbekistan’s Paltau valley may push back the timeline of the development of bow and arrow technology, Science News Today reports. A team from the University of Bordeaux and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography in Novosibirsk uncovered hundreds of stone artifact fragments from deposits in the cave ranging from 40,000 to 90,000 years old. They determined that at least 20 of these resembled projectile points that fall into three categories: large retouched points, micropoints, and bladelets. These objects likely functioned as arrowheads, the team theorized, but they appear to be around 80,000 years old. Most scholars traditionally believe that early humans first began using bows and arrows to hunt around 50,000 years ago, a major turning point in human history. Scholars have largely associated this technology with the spread of Homo sapiens out of Africa and into Eurasia. This new evidence suggests that the development and use of lightweight projectiles may be tens of thousands of years older than previously thought, though the researchers caution that more work is needed. Read the original scholarly article about this research in PLOS One. For more on bow and arrow technology, go to "Weapons of the Ancient World: Hunting Equipment."