These 60,000-year-old poison arrows are oldest yet found

Poisoned arrows or darts have long been used by cultures around the world for hunting or warfare. For example, prescriptions for poisoning projective weapons and deploying them in battle exist in Greek and Roman historical documents as well as references in Greek mythology and Homer. iliad And odysseyChinese warriors did the same for centuries, as did the Gauls and Scythians and some Native American populations,

Archaeologists have now found traces of plant-based poison on several 60,000-year-old quartz Stone Age arrowheads found in South Africa, according to a new paper published in the journal Science Advances. This would become the oldest direct evidence of the use of poison on projectiles – a cognitively complex hunting strategy – and pushes the timeline of use of poison arrows into the Pleistocene.

Commonly used poisons can be obtained from plants or animals (frogs, beetles, poisonous lizards). Plant-based examples include curare, a muscle relaxant that paralyzes the victim’s respiratory system, leading to death by suffocation. Oleander, milkweeds, or ini (onaye) contain cardiac glucosides. In Southeast Asia, the sap or sap of the seeds of the anchar tree is applied to arrowheads, which causes paralysis, convulsions, and heart failure due to the presence of toxins such as strychnine. Several species of Aconite are known for use as arrow poisons in Siberia and northern Japan.

According to the authors, so far, the earliest direct evidence of poisoned arrows comes from the mid-Holocene. For example, scientists found traces of toxic glycoside residues on 4,000-year-old bone arrowheads recovered from an Egyptian tomb, as well as on 6,700-year-old bone arrow points excavated from South Africa’s Kruger Cave. The only prior evidence of poison being used for hunting during the Pleistocene is a “poison Applicator” found with a piece of beeswax in Border Cave in South Africa.

poisonous onion milk

The authors sampled 10 quartz-backed arrowheads recovered from the Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter site in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The results showed that traces of the compounds were found in five of the 10 devices tested bouffon distichaAka gifbol (poisonous onion), sometimes called century plant, which is common throughout South Africa. Various parts of the plant have been used as an analgesic (particularly a volatile oil called eugenol) as well as poisonous for hunting purposes. Its more toxic compounds include bufenandrin, crinamidine, and bufanin; The latter is similar in effect to scopolamine and can cause hallucinations, coma, or death.