(ORDO NEWS) — Hundreds of stone artifacts discovered in the south of France show that Homo sapiens brought archery technology to Europe much earlier than hitherto thought.
Located in the Rhone Valley, Grotte Mandrin has been used by people since time immemorial.
It is shown that Neanderthals took refuge here even more than 80 thousand years ago, and last year Laure Metz (Laure Metz) and her colleagues from the University of Aix-Marseille discovered that our direct ancestors also used the cave, in particular, they found a tooth of Homo sapiens , dated about 54 thousand years old.
Since then, scientists have continued to explore the ancient layers dating back to the existence of a sapiens site in the Grotte Mandrin.
Report the discovery of new unique artifacts left by these people, primarily more than a thousand small, pointed stone tools 1-2 centimeters long.
Some of them scientists identified as arrowheads. It is possible that other instruments were used in this capacity, but it was possible to reliably prove this for about a hundred samples.
Some of them were broken off in the bodies of animals and retained traces of exposure to the flame, which apparently appeared during cooking on fire. Other arrowheads have been found with shaft remains.
The use of the bow and arrow began in Africa about 70,000 years ago.
However, the earliest evidence of their use in Europe has so far been dated only about ten thousand years ago; such artifacts have been found in Germany.
However, it was clear that Homo sapiens , who began to supplant European Neanderthals over 40,000 years ago, must have brought this revolutionary hunting technology with them ; this is also indicated by a new find made in France.
It is believed that the Neanderthals could not adopt it and never mastered shooting, although they used spears.
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