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Did our ancestors' 'high tech' projectile weapons give them the killing edge to become the dominant human species?

• Archaeological finds in South Africa dating back 71,000 years are the earliest evidence of humans making projectile weapons
• The findings at Pinnacle Point, near Mossel Bay, suggest this could be the the region were early humans first emerged

The development of 'high tech' long range weapons 71,000 years ago in Africa gave humans the killing edge which helped make us the dominant species, a new study suggests.
Finds in South Africa suggest that by the time our ancestors began to spread across the planet they had developed advanced weapons that made them more than a match for Neanderthal rivals.
Research on stone tools and Neanderthal anatomy strongly suggests that our now-extinct sister species lacked true projectile weapons.

Neanderthals watch out: This reconstruction of a Homo sapiens hunting party from the BBC documentary Planet of the Apeman shows how our ancestors might have wielded their 'high tech' weapons

'When Africans left Africa and entered Neanderthal territory they had projectiles with greater killing reach, and these early moderns probably also had higher levels of pro-social (hyper-cooperative) behaviour,' said Curtis Marean, project director and Arizona State University professor in the Institute of Human Origins.
'These two traits were a knockout punch. Combine them, as modern humans did and still do, and no prey or competitor is safe.
'This probably laid the foundation for the expansion out of Africa of modern humans and the extinction of many prey as well as our sister species such as Neanderthals.'

 

The findings at Pinnacle Point, near Mossel Bay, also suggest that modern man may have evolved in this region as the Stone Age technology found only took hold in other areas of Africa and Eurasia about 50,000 years later.
'Every time we excavate a new site in coastal South Africa with advanced field techniques, we discover new and surprising results that push back in time the evidence for uniquely human behaviours,' said Professor Marean.

These microlith blades show a flat side and a rounded 'cutting' edge: It is believed they were used in light armaments for use as projectiles, either as arrows for bows, or as spears for throwers known as atlatls

The dig: The excavation site preserves about 14m of archaeological sediment dating from approximately 90,000 to 50,000 years ago. Almost 200,000 finds have been plotted to date, and excavations continue

The study, published in today's issue of the journal Nature, found that the technology focused on the careful production of long, thin blades of stone that were then blunted on one edge so that they could be glued into slots carved in wood or bone.
This created light armaments for use as projectiles, either as arrows in bow and arrow technology, or more likely as spear throwers, known as atlatls. They provide a significant advantage by increasing the killing reach of the hunter and lowering the risk of injury.

WHO DIDN'T THE NEANDERTHALS HAVE SEX WITH?

Sub-Saharan Africans are the only modern humans whose ancestors apparently did not interbreed with Neanderthals, new research suggests.

Scientists studying human genetic ancestry have found that, like modern Eurasian peoples, modern North Africans also carry genetic traces which suggest some Neanderthal ancestry.

Neanderthals were a closely related species of humans who thrived in Europe and the near East during the last Ice Age but died out around 30,000 years ago.

Genetic evidence published in 2010 suggests they interbred with the ancestors of some modern humans, with as much as 1 to 4 per cent of modern Eurasian genomes containing Neanderthal DNA.

The stone used to produce these special blades was carefully transformed for easier flaking by a complex process called 'heat treatment,' a technological advance also appearing early in coastal South Africa.
'Good things come in small packages,' said Kyle Brown, a stone tool replicator and co-author. 'When we started to find these very small carefully made tools, we were glad that we had saved and sorted even the smallest of our sieved materials.
'At sites excavated less carefully, these microliths may have been discarded in the back dirt or never identified in the lab.'
This microlithic technology appear briefly between 65,000 and 60,000 years ago during a worldwide glacial phase, and then was thought to vanish, showing what many scientists accept as a 'flickering' pattern of advanced technologies in Africa.
This pattern was thought to result from small populations struggling during harsh climate phases, inventing technologies, and then losing them due to chance occurrences wiping out the artisans with the special knowledge.
'Eleven thousand years of continuity is, in reality, an almost unimaginable time span for people to consistently make tools the same way,' said Professor Marean. 'This is certainly not a flickering pattern.'
The appearance and disappearance is more likely a function of the small sample of well-excavated sites in Africa. Because of this small sample, each new site has a high probability of adding a novel observation.

Birthplace of the first humans? Pinnacle Point on the southern coast of South Africa. It is thought modern man may have evolved in this region as the technology found here only emerged elsewhere about 50,000 years later

The African sample is a tiny fraction of the known European sample from the same time period. 'This is why continued and well-funded fieldwork in Africa is of the highest scientific priority if we want to learn about what it means to be human, and where and when it happened,' said Professor Marean.
The excavation site preserves about 14m of archaeological sediment dating from approximately 90,000 to 50,000 years ago. Every observed item related to human behaviour was plotted directly to a computer using a 'total station' - a surveying instrument that digitally captures points where items are found to create a 3D model of the excavation.
Almost 200,000 finds have been plotted to date, and excavations continue.
'As an archaeologist and scientist, it is a privilege to work on a site that preserves a near perfect layered sequence capturing almost 50,000 years of human prehistory,' said Mr Brown, who codirected excavations.
'Our team has done a remarkable job of identifying some of the subtle but important clues to just how innovative these early humans on the south coast were.