Earliest evidence for bow-and-arrow technology, Sibudu Cave

Date

c. 64,000 years ago

Category

Science, technology & invention

Region

Southern Africa (South Africa)

Era

Prehistory

Significance

Microscopic and residue analysis of small stone points from Sibudu Cave in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, has provided the earliest widely cited evidence for bow-and-arrow hunting, dated to about 64,000 years ago.

Studies led by Marlize Lombard and colleagues found impact fractures consistent with high-velocity use, traces of animal tissue and blood, and remnants of plant resin and ochre-based adhesives used to haft the points — a pattern best explained by their use as stone-tipped arrowheads rather than as thrusting-spear or hand-thrown points. A bone point from the same site extends the picture of projectile technology. Mechanically propelled projectiles such as the bow are a major cognitive and technical advance: they require the manufacture of compound tools from multiple components, an understanding of stored elastic energy, and they allow hunters to kill at a distance and in greater safety. Because bows, arrowshafts and sinew rarely survive, such indirect evidence is crucial, and Sibudu places the deep roots of this transformative weapon system firmly within the African Middle Stone Age.

Related science, technology & invention events

• Coastal foraging and heat-treated tools at Pinnacle Point
  c. 164,000 years ago
• The Florisbad skull: an early Homo sapiens of southern Africa
  c. 259,000 years ago
• The Still Bay and Howiesons Poort technological traditions
  c. 77,000–59,000 years ago
• Australopithecus afarensis ('Lucy' and relatives)
  c. 3.9–2.9 million years ago
• Discovery of the Denisovans and archaic-modern interbreeding
  c. 100,000 – 40,000 years ago (interbreeding); identified 2010
• Domestication of maize from teosinte in Mesoamerica
  c. 7000 BCE (c. 9,000 years ago)

Further reading

A Little History of Science

The wider story

A Little History of Science

William Bynum

Warm, jargon-free tour of discovery from Babylonian stargazers to the genome.

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