A new analysis of ancient arrowheads from South Africa pushes back prehistoric humans’ earliest use of poisoned weapons by more than 50,000 years.
The five 60,000-year-old quartz arrowheads still have traces of a poison made from a bulbous flowering plant named gifbol (Boophone disticha), also called “poisonous onion,” that was used until recent centuries by traditional hunters. The find points to a “cognitively complex” hunting strategy among early humans, researchers report January 7 in Science Advances.
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