The oldest examples of bows and arrows were made using olive wood, reed wood, and birch bark – with ruins found in the caves of Los Murciélagos in Albuñol, Granada, revealing, for the first time, the sophistication of archery during the Neolithic period (5300 to 4900 BCE).
That is according to new research, the First evidence of early neolithic archery from Cueva de los Murciélagos (Albuñol, Granada) revealed through a combined chemical and morphological analysis, published in Nature on Friday. The research, comprising several Spanish and French teams, was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 Programme.
“The identification of these bowstrings (the oldest ever found in Europe, made from tendons of three different animal species) marks a crucial step in the study of Neolithic weaponry,” said Ingrid Bertin, the study’s first author and researcher from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), who used advanced microscopy and biomolecular analysis – which combines protein and liquid – to “redefine the limits of our knowledge about the earliest agricultural societies in Europe.”
“Not only were we able to confirm the use of animal tendons to make them, but we also identified the genus or species of animal from which they came,” Bertin said before revealing that olive wood (Olea europaea) and reed wood (Phragmites sp) were both used to manufacture arrow reeds – confirming a hypothesis held by archaeologists for decades.
“This integration offered a hard and dense front section, complemented by a light back, which significantly improves the ballistic properties of the arrows, whose tips are made of wood without stone or bone projectiles.”
Ingrid Bertin, the study’s first author and researcher from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB)
“Future experiments may clarify whether arrows were used for hunting or close-range combat or if they were non-lethal arrows,” Bertin said. “Finally, the arrow shafts were coated with birch bark pitch, a material obtained by controlled heat treatment of the tree bark, used not only for its protective properties but probably also for decorative purposes, which adds an aesthetic and functional dimension to the equipment.”
New research provides a fresh perspective on Neolithic groups.
According to the researchers, the study redefines archaeologists’ understanding of Neolithic-era populations, who, they said, developed sophistical manufacturing processes to make weaponry: “The discoveries enrich the understanding of the artisan practices and daily life of prehistoric societies and open ways for the study of ancient weaponry,” said Raquel Piqué, UAB researcher from the Department of Prehistory and coordinator of the study. “They also provide a better understanding of the symbolic sphere linked to these grave goods from a funerary context, such as the Cave of Los Murciélagos.”
The latest find comes after Wood Central reported, back in May, that Neanderthals were far better at crafting materials than first thought, with archaeologists now analysing 300,000-plus-year-old wooden tools, shaking up cultural appropriations of the Old World and the complex relationships between Neanderthals and early Homo Saipans.
The findings come from a study, The wooden artifacts from Schöningen’s Spear Horizon and their place in human evolution, marking the first comprehensive report after objects excavated during a 15-year-period between 1994 and 2008 in the peat of an open-pit coal mine near Schöningen, northern Germany.
According to Thomas Terberger, an archaeologist and head of research at the Department of Cultural Heritage of Lower Saxony in Germany, the Stone Age – which came before the Bronze and Iron Ages – may as well be called the Wood Age: “We can probably assume that wooden tools have been around just as long as stone ones, that is, two and a half or three million years,” Terberger said, “but since wood deteriorates and rarely survives, preservation bias distorts our view of antiquity.”
