IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v385y1997i6619d10.1038_385807a0.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Lower Palaeolithic hunting spears from Germany

Author

Listed:
  • Hartmut Thieme

    (Institut für Denkmalpflege)

Abstract

Little is known about the organic component of Lower and Middle Palaeolithic technologies, particular with respect to wooden tools1,2. Here I describe some wooden throwing spears about 400,000 years old that were discovered in 1995 at the Pleistocene site at Schöningen, Germany. They are thought to be the oldest complete hunting weapons so far discovered to have been used by humans. Found in association with stone tools and the butchered remains of more than ten horses, the spears strongly suggest that systematic hunting, involving foresight, planning and the use of appropriate technology, was part of the behavioural repertoire of pre-modern hominids. The use of sophisticated spears as early as the Middle Pleistocene may mean that many current theories on early human behaviour and culture must be revised.

Suggested Citation

  • Hartmut Thieme, 1997. "Lower Palaeolithic hunting spears from Germany," Nature, Nature, vol. 385(6619), pages 807-810, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6619:d:10.1038_385807a0
    DOI: 10.1038/385807a0
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/385807a0
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/385807a0?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Igor Catic & Maja Rujnic-Sokele & Ivor Karavanic, 2010. "Globalisation of Stone Tools and Beginnings of Mechanical Processing of Polymers," Interdisciplinary Description of Complex Systems - scientific journal, Croatian Interdisciplinary Society Provider Homepage: http://indecs.eu, vol. 8(2), pages 59-69.
    2. Roberto Cazzolla Gatti & Roger Koppl & Brian D. Fath & Stuart Kauffman & Wim Hordijk & Robert E. Ulanowicz, 2020. "On the emergence of ecological and economic niches," Journal of Bioeconomics, Springer, vol. 22(2), pages 99-127, July.
    3. Elisa Bandini & Rachel A. Harrison & Alba Motes-Rodrigo, 2022. "Examining the suitability of extant primates as models of hominin stone tool culture," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-18, December.
    4. Vernon L. Smith, 1998. "The Two Faces of Adam Smith," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 65(1), pages 1-19, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:385:y:1997:i:6619:d:10.1038_385807a0. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.