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Analysis of quartz arrowheads from South Africa reveals that they may represent the earliest use of poison arrows in hunting.
Researchers from Sweden and South Africa carried out gas chromatography–mass spectrometry (GC-MS) analysis of ten microliths discovered in the Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal Province, dating to c.60,000 years ago. On five of these arrowheads, they identified the toxic alkaloid buphanidrine; one also bore traces of epibuphanisine. These alkaloids are found in plants from the Amaryllidaceae family indigenous to southern Africa. The most likely source is believed to be Boophone disticha, also known as gifbol, as the secretion from the bulb of this plant has long been used by local hunters for its highly toxic properties.
The same compounds were also found on four 250-year-old bone arrowheads collected in the region by 18th-century travellers, which were analysed as part of the same study, suggesting that this may be part of a long-lasting tradition.
Indirect traces of poison have previously been proposed as evidence for its use in Pleistocene hunting, but until now the oldest direct evidence for the practice dated to the Holocene, 6,700 years ago. The findings from Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter push back by many millennia this breakthrough in hunting technology, which would have significantly reduced the time, energy, and risk involved. The creation of such poison arrows highlights the advanced skills and technical knowledge of their makers, who were able to identify, extract, and apply the toxin to their weapons. It also reflects an understanding of animal behaviour and a capacity for forward thinking and abstract planning, as the poison would probably have had a delayed effect, requiring the hunters to track their wounded prey for some time. It is particularly noteworthy, study author Professor Sven Isaksson remarks, that this innovation appears during a period in the late Middle Palaeolithic when other indicators of complex cognition become visible in the archaeological record.
The research has been published in the journal Science Advances (http://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adz3281).
Text: Amy Brunskill / Image: Marlize Lombard
