US EditionOldest Whale Bone Tools Discovered
- Archaeologists led by Jean-Marc Pétillon reported on May 27 that humans around Spain's Bay of Biscay made whale bone tools between 20,000 and 16,000 years ago.
- This practice arose because stranded whales provided large bones, which Paleolithic hunter-gatherers collected for toolmaking instead of actively hunting whales.
- Researchers analyzed 83 bone tools from 26 sites and found they came from at least five whale species including sperm, fin, and blue whales, mainly used for spear points and shafts.
- Radiocarbon dating showed many tools date between 17,500 and 16,000 years ago, supporting that coastal humans regularly used marine resources despite colder climates and lower sea levels.
- These findings imply that Stone Age people exploited coastal environments extensively, challenging previous views focusing mainly on inland hunting and emphasizing the value of revisiting old collections.
88 Articles
88 Articles
Tools made of whale bones reveal inventiveness of prehistoric people
Artefacts found at archaeological sites in France and Spain along the Bay of Biscay shoreline show that humans have been crafting tools from whale bones since more than 20,000 years ago, illustrating anew the resourcefulness of prehistoric people.
Late Paleolithic whale bone tools reveal human and whale ecology in the Bay of Biscay
Reconstructing how prehistoric humans used the products obtained from large cetaceans is challenging, but key to understand the history of early human coastal adaptations. Here we report the multiproxy analysis (ZooMS, radiocarbon, stable isotopes) of worked objects made of whale bone, and unworked whale bone fragments, found at Upper Paleolithic sites (Magdalenian) around the Bay of Biscay. Taxonomic identification using ZooMS reveals at least …
Prehistoric tools made of whale bones found in France
Artifacts found at archeological sites in France and Spain along the Bay of Biscay shoreline show that humans have been crafting tools from whale bones since more than 20,000 years ago, illustrating anew the resourcefulness of prehistoric people. The tools, primarily hunting implements such as projectile points, were fashioned from the bones of at least five species of large whales, the researchers said. Bones from sperm whales were the most abu…
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