New York – Scientists have identified the oldest known proof of Humans make tools whale bone.
The bones, shaped in narrow projectiles for hunting, had been Discovered in excavations Dating more than a century in the Gulf of Gascogne near Spain and France. Scientists understood the The tools were quite oldBut many were small fragments, so it was difficult to determine their age.
Technological progress over the past decade has now led to the oldest tools about 20,000 years ago. Scientists discovered that bones came from blue whales, fins, sperm and other species.
“Humans and whales have been meeting clearly for a long time,” said Vicki Szabo of the University of Western Carolina, who studies the history of hunting and was not involved in the latest research.
Scientists believe that ancient humans made whale bone instruments in places such as the Arctic and the South Pacific. There was solid evidence of whale bone tools dating from about 5,000 years ago, but the new research published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications pushes the calendar.
Ancient humans did not necessarily drive out the whales, said the author of the Jean-Marc Petillon study with the French National Center for Scientific Research. More likely, they recovered the bodies of the stranded whales and shaped their dense and heavy bones in tools to hunt reindeer or the bison.
The tools indicate that the old people in the region took advantage of the resources near the sea for survival. They probably also collected shells and caught. Finding such evidence has been difficult because the rise in sea level disrupts the coasts around the world, said scientists.
“It is one more contribution to the importance of coastal environments for human groups, even in this long past,” said Petillon.
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