Hunting with poison arrows may have begun 60,000 years ago in Africa

Traces of plant toxins have been found on 60,000-year-old arrowheads in South Africa, showing that ancient hunters used poisons much earlier than previously known.

Until recently, evidence of the use of poisoned arrows only dated back to about 8,000 years ago. Then, in 2020, an analysis of arrows dating back to 50,000 to 80,000 years found that they were consistent with the design of poisoned arrowheads from the last 150 years.

This team, led by Marlies Lombard from the University of Johannesburg in South Africa found that one 60,000-year-old bone point was coated with a sticky liquid, but they could not conclusively prove the presence of poison.

Now Lombard and her team have discovered that five 60,000-year-old quartzite arrowheads excavated in 1985 from the Umhlatuzana rock shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, still contain traces of the toxic plant alkaloids bufandrine and epibuphanisine.

Most likely, scientists say, they come from milky exudate from the roots of the plant. Buff couplets. This sticky substance can be applied directly to the arrowhead or processed by heating, drying and mixing with other substances to create a resin.

“If we only found this on one artifact, it could be a coincidence,” Lombard says. “But finding it on five of the 10 artifacts sampled is unusual, suggesting it was deliberately applied 60,000 years ago.”

The same poisonous sap has been used by the San people of southern Africa to this day – Lombard suspects it has been in continuous use for at least 60,000 years.

It is fatal to rodents within 30 minutes and can cause nausea and coma in humans. For big game, poisons could slow it down enough to allow hunters to track and stalk their prey until it was killed.

“If I guess Bufon The poison was likely discovered by people who ate the bulbs and then became sick or died from it, Lombard says. “The plant also has preservative, antibacterial and hallucinatory properties, which is why it is used in traditional medicine, and human deaths still occur as a result of accidental overdose.”

To confirm the result, the team also tested arrows collected by Carl Peter Thunberg, a Swedish naturalist who visited South Africa in the 1770s and wrote about the use of poison arrows by indigenous hunters. Tests discovered deadly alkaloids from the same plant species.

Sven Isakssona team member from Stockholm University, Sweden, says the discovery is early evidence of the complex uses of plants. “We know that people have been using plants for food and tools for a very long time, but this is something different – using the biochemical properties of plants such as drugs, medicines and poisons.”