The recently discovered arrowhead that the ancients used to hunt mammoths and mastodons about 15,000 years ago casts doubt on the history of the migration of early humans in America and our knowledge of their technology.
Find
Archaeologists from the University of Texas excavated a marshland 64 kilometers northwest of Austin, Texas, where they found a stone tip. A blade no more than 10 cm long was found at a place called Debra L. Fridkin. The area is rich in archaeological treasures from the Clovis culture, which have long been considered the first people in America. This culture is known for its high-tech (as in its time) form of copies.
However, it seems that the arrowhead found was made even before the Clovis culture. The results of this study appeared in the journal Science Advances, and they indicate that the found tip was used approximately 13,500-15,000 years ago, making it the oldest known weapon in North America.
Why is this discovery so important?
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This is a significant discovery, as many stone tools other than spears have been found at almost every human excavation site that predates the Clovis culture. Professor Michael Waters, professor at the Center for the Study of English in Texas, told about this in his statement. This tip was found under the Clovis and Falls culture layer. The Clovis culture existed 13,000-1277 years ago, and the Falls culture developed after it.
Curiously, the arrowhead found has a distinct starting point, which is very similar to that of the Clovis culture arrowheads, which were extremely high-tech at the time.
The discovery of the tip was quite exciting for Waters and his team: "We wanted to find artifacts that predate the Clovis culture, and we succeeded at an excavation site called Friedkin."
So how did this spear come about? Did it belong to the predecessors of the Clovis culture? Or is this relic left over from a previous separate migration? Archaeologists are extremely careful and do not rush to draw final conclusions, but this discovery certainly tells us about the life and culture of the peoples that existed in these territories before the Clovis culture.
What is known about the Clovis culture
Until recently, it was believed that members of the Clovis culture migrated to America from Asia about 13,500 years ago via the Bering Strait land bridge. Then archaeological evidence confirmed that the first people set foot on the American continent much earlier. The found tip is further evidence in favor of this statement. Nevertheless, even with all these finds at hand, archaeologists are still not entirely sure who these first people were and how they got to America.
“The find broadens our understanding of how early humans arrived and settled in North America,” Waters added. - The settling of North and South America at the end of the last ice age was a complex process, which is reflected in their genetic record. Now there is finally evidence that this complexity is reflected in the archaeological record.
Author: Anna Pismenna