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Archaeologists Just Uncovered Deadly Weapons Of First Americans ‘Can Hunt Any Animal We Know’

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New discovery offers new insights into the way the first Americans articulated complex thoughts through technology at that time.

Archaeologists from Oregon State University have found projectile points in Idaho that are thousands of years older than any previously found in the Americas. This helps us learn more about how early humans made and used stone weapons.

Carbon-14 dating places the origin of the thirteen complete and incomplete projectile points, which range in size from approximately half an inch to two inches in length, at about 15,700 years ago. That’s roughly 2,300 years older than the points previously discovered at the same Cooper’s Ferry site along the Salmon River in modern-day Idaho, and around 3,000 years older than the Clovis fluted points found across North America.

The results were published in the journal Science Advances today.

“From a scientific point of view, these discoveries add very important details about what the archaeological record of the earliest peoples of the Americas looks like,” explains Loren Davis, an anthropology professor at OSU and head of the group that found the points. “It’s one thing to say, ‘We think that people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago;’ it’s another thing to measure it by finding well-made artifacts they left behind.”

Davis and other researchers who had worked at the Cooper’s Ferry site before had found simple flakes and pieces of bone that showed people were there about 16,000 years ago. Davis, however, argued that the finding of projectile points provided fresh insight into the ways in which the earliest Americans articulated sophisticated thinking via technology.

The Salmon River location where the artifacts were discovered is traditional Nez Perce territory, known to the tribe as the old settlement of Nipéhe. The federal Bureau of Land Management is in charge of the land at the moment.

Davis said that the points are interesting not only because of how old they are but also because they look like projectile points found in Hokkaido, Japan, that were made between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago. Their presence in Idaho supports the idea that there are genetic and cultural links between the people who lived in North America and Northeast Asia during the Ice Age.

Archaeologists Just Uncovered Deadly Weapons Of First Americans 'Can Hunt Any Animal We Know'
Archaeologists Just Uncovered Deadly Weapons Of First Americans ‘Can Hunt Any Animal We Know’

“The earliest peoples of North America possessed cultural knowledge that they used to survive and thrive over time. Some of this knowledge can be seen in the way people made stone tools, such as the projectile points found at the Cooper’s Ferry site,” Davis adds. “By comparing these points with other sites of the same age and older, we can infer the spatial extents of social networks where this technological knowledge was shared between peoples.”

These narrow projectile tips have two distinct ends, one pointed and one stemmed, and a symmetrical beveled form when seen from the front. Davis said that they were probably tied to darts rather than arrows or spears, and despite their tiny size, they were lethal weapons.

“There’s an assumption that early projectile points had to be big to kill large game; however, smaller projectile points mounted on darts will penetrate deeply and cause tremendous internal damage,” he adds. “You can hunt any animal we know about with weapons like these.”

Davis said that these discoveries add to what is becoming clear about how early people lived in the Pacific Northwest. 

“Finding a site where people made pits and stored complete and broken projectile points nearly 16,000 years ago gives us valuable details about the lives of our region’s earliest inhabitants.”

Oldest, deadliest projectile points found in the Americas reveals the lifestyle of the first Americans

The new pits are part of the larger Cooper’s Ferry record, where Davis and his colleagues have already found a 14,200-year-old fire pit and a food-processing area with the bones of an extinct horse. Overall, they were able to locate and accurately map over 65,000 objects, noting their specific positions down to the millimeter.

Between 2012 and 2017, the projectile points were found over the course of several summers. The work was made possible by a funding partnership between OSU and the BLM. All of the digging is done, and the site is now covered up. To explain the work, the BLM constructed interpretive panels and a kiosk at the site.

Since the 1990s, Davis has been studying the Cooper’s Ferry site as an archaeologist with the BLM. He now partners with the BLM to bring OSU students to work on the site in the summer. The team also collaborates with the Nez Perce tribe to provide field opportunities for tribal youth and to share all findings.

Source:10.1126/sciadv.ade1248

Image Credit: Courtesy Loren Davis

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