Indications of bow and stone-tipped arrow use 64 000 years ago in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
2010/09/01 by Marlize Lombard, Laurel Phillipson · 283 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Social Sciences · #Archaeology #Archaeology and Rock Art Studies #Archaeology and ancient environmental studies #Arrow #Assemblage (archaeology) #Cave #Checklist #Computer science #Context (archaeology) #Geography #Geology #History #Paleontology #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1017/s0003598x00100134
published in Antiquity 84(325), 635-648 (Cambridge University Press)
openalex publication_date 2010/09/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/30
Abstract
The invention of the bow and arrow was a pivotal moment in the human story and its earliest use is a primary quarry of the modern researcher. Since the organic parts of the weapon – wood, bone, cord and feathers – very rarely survive, the deduction that a bow and arrow was in use depends heavily on the examination of certain classes of stone artefacts and their context. Here the authors apply rigorous analytical reasoning to the task, and demonstrate that, conforming to their exacting checklist, is an early assemblage from Sibudu Cave, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, which therefore suggests bow and arrow technology in use there 64 millennia ago.
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- Archery [wikipedia]
- Behavioral modernity [wikipedia]
- Making Sense of Residues on Flaked Stone Artefacts: Learning from Blind Tests. [europepmc]
- Beetle and plant arrow poisons of the Ju|'hoan and Hai||om San peoples of Namibia (Insecta, Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae; Plantae, Anacardiaceae, Apocynaceae, Burseraceae). [europepmc]
- The Aegean in the Early 7th Millennium BC: Maritime Networks and Colonization. [europepmc]
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- Causal Cognition, Force Dynamics and Early Hunting Technologies. [europepmc]
- Regional patterns of diachronic technological change in the Howiesons Poort of southern Africa. [europepmc]
- Howiesons Poort backed artifacts provide evidence for social connectivity across southern Africa during the Final Pleistocene. [europepmc]
- Infectious diseases may have arrested the southward advance of microblades in Upper Palaeolithic East Asia. [europepmc]
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