So when did the first spears with the first tips made of stone appear? Finally, science can answer this question somewhat more definitely. Today, the oldest wooden spear without a tip, but simply with a sharpened point, is a spear found in Essex, and eight wooden spears from Schöningen (Germany), whose age is determined in the range from 360,000 to 420,000 years. Well, the most ancient spears with obsidian tips (or rather, spear tips!) Were found in Gademotte in Ethiopia. Their age is 280,000 years. However, there are older finds today. For example, in 2012 in the Cape Province of South Africa, 13 stone blades were found at once, which, according to archaeologists, represent precisely the spearheads. But their age is already 500,000 years old or something like that.
Image of a hunter in front of a bison. Lasko cave. Dordogne. France
The finds in Gademotte deserve more details, since this area today is an ancient mountain range, towering over one of the four lakes of the rift valley located there - the exceptionally picturesque Lake Zivai. Approximately 125-780 thousand years ago, a large "mega-lake" was poured here, which included all four modern reservoirs and where paleontologists found numerous remains of ancient antelopes and hippos and … what is most valuable - 141 obsidian spear points.
The finds were carried out by Professor Yonatan Zale from the University of California, who drew attention to the characteristic damage they had. It turns out that at the moment of impact, V-shaped cracks appear on the obsidian plates. Vertex "V" marks the point from which cracks propagate in different directions. It has been observed that the narrower the “wings” “V” are, the higher the rate of cracking in obsidian. For some arrowheads, it exceeded 80 m / s, while for others it was about 1.5 m / s. That is, it turns out that in the first case, a spear with a tip flew at the target when thrown, and in the second, the object of the hunt was simply hit by it. And Jean Auel just emphasizes that her heroes, who belonged to the Neanderthals, run after the animal and hit him. They also have a kind of sports competition - "javelin run", during which you need to be the first to reach the target and hit it with a javelin.
Here it is, the ancient processed stone from which our civilization began. Dordogne, France.
But this is a book, albeit very interestingly written. In fact, it has long been clear that the invention of projectile weapons was a giant step in the history of mankind. Having learned to throw a spear at a target, a person got the opportunity not to get close to a dangerous animal, but to hit him from a distance. Prior to this discovery, it was believed that throwing weapons appeared about 60-100 thousand years ago. And there was a reason to think so. The oldest dart was found, the age of which was determined at 80 thousand years. Then a bow, arrows and a spear thrower (atlatl) appeared. And it seemed logical that all this was invented by the Homo sapiens, because it is much more difficult to make a good throwing weapon than a piercing-cutting one. But new finds suggest that, apparently, darts were used not only by Cro-Magnons, who are considered our immediate ancestors, but also by representatives of some other, obviously more ancient African population of Homo. Zale decided that the oldest darts were the creation of Heidelberg man, and that he was the most likely ancestor of Homo sapiens and, again, the same Neanderthals.
Spearheads and stone axes. Museum of Anatolian Civilization. Ankara, Turkey.
It is clear that most likely we will never know where Homo sapiens got this weapon from. Our ancestors themselves invented it or borrowed it from someone. It is more important to know that 200-300 thousand years ago new anatomical features and obviously more complex tools appeared in human evolution, which indicates the improvement of his thinking. It is possible that it was then that people began to speak. And do not pay special attention to the fact that this find was made in Ethiopia. A javelin could appear almost anywhere. It is more important that even then the ancient people could quite successfully fight from a distance! But they still did not always use stone tips! So, the spears of the Australian aborigines are still a simple sharpened stick! In 1779, in the Hawaiian Islands, where Captain James Cook died, a trophy was taken in a battle with the islanders - a wooden spear with a harpoon-shaped tip. And in the Solomon Islands, bone points were used. So here the person's fantasy literally knew no bounds and used everything that was suitable at his fingertips.
Spear thrower decoration. British museum. London.
That is, if we assume that the painting of the same Lascaux cave in France most likely dates back to the 18th millennium BC, then … the latest scientific data show that by this time throwing spears with stone tips were already widespread, although yes - we cannot judge this on the basis of hunting pictures in ancient caves. Well, we can judge that the earliest spears were just sharpened sticks, if only because this is the simplest weapon that can only be invented at all. And if points from throwing spears were found, then before them, of course, purely shock spears were used, and the very first of them, well, simply by the logic of things, could not have any points, but only a primitively made point and nothing more!
A still from the film "Million Years BC" (1966). Here, it turns out, what kind of beauties were then. By the way, everything is downright on Jean Auel - well, the spitting image of Eila from the cycle of her novels "Children of the Earth".
As for the novels and images created by Jean M. Auel, with all the merits of her works, she nevertheless somewhat oversaturated them, firstly, with too many descriptions of the sex life of people of the Stone Age, in some places, well, quite clearly redundant. Well, and secondly, her tolerance and peacefulness are clearly excessive.
Bison struck by a spear. Drawing on the wall in the Levoberezhnaya cave. Sablino.
Although, the fact that in those days weapons were still quite rarely directed against people is most likely true. But the reason for this was not at all hidden in the high moral qualities of the people of that time, but in the fact that the human tribes themselves were very few in number. According to some reports, the population density in the late Paleolithic era was 1 person per 20 square kilometers. Human collectives then reached an average of 40 people, and indeed there were very few people on the globe. For example, it is believed that by the late Paleolithic era, the population of the Earth was something about three million people. But even if we assume that there were several times more of them, the struggle for "living space", most likely, was still very, very far away. Certainly, there were some bloody clashes between people, since even now they are far from being angels, and at that time they did not know either God's commandments or catechism at school!
The truth in the works of J. I. Roni the Elder and Jean M. Auel, that is, the beginning and the end of the twentieth century, lies, as always, somewhere in the middle. However, ethnographic materials also show that people preferred to settle conflicts in the early stages of human history peacefully. If it was not possible to achieve peace, then special fighters were chosen for the forceful solution of the conflict, and the fights between them were conducted according to certain rules, which were to be strictly observed by both sides. Well, if the general fight was inevitable, then before it again they agreed how and how much to fight, about the maximum number of losses, the side that suffered them would have to admit itself defeated and subsequently pay tribute to the winners. Of course, we cannot say with absolute certainty that all these same customs also existed at the dawn of human history. Although on the other hand, why not ?! However, if we are talking about some kind of evidence, then … the picturesque images of those distant years unambiguously tell us only about hunting for animals, but for some reason, killed people, as well as living ones, are practically absent on them!
A spearhead found during excavations at Buttermilk Creek, Texas.
However, new finds appear all the time. For example, archaeologists from the University of Texas during excavations at Buttermilk Creek in the state of Texas managed to find stone spearheads that are 15.5 thousand years old. It would seem that something like that was found here and more ancient, but in this case it is important that earlier scientists believed that the first people appeared in North America 11-11, 5 thousand years ago. They belonged to the so-called Clovis culture. But now it is clear that the settlement of the North American continent took place even earlier!
And this is part of the rest of the finds made by scientists at the University of Texas.
Interestingly, during the excavations, about 100 thousand different stone artifacts were found, including 12 spearheads aged from 13.5 to 15.5 thousand years. True, it is still impossible to say whether the people of the Clovis culture are descendants of this group or not? And were there two, who migrated to North America with an interval of several millennia, groups of people, or was it one group, but simply settled in different territories. So the study of our past continues successfully, and even spearheads made of stone help in this!
