The smallest measure just 1.2 centimeters and the largest can reach up to five. Someone spent hours, approximately 15,700 years ago, making them razor sharp. It was not be for lowerly. These 13 projectile points were an important part of their weaponry, ideal for hunting and surviving in a hostile environment.
Archaeologists from Oregon State University have discovered them at the Cooper's Ferry site, located in a canyon near the Salmon River, in western Idaho (United States). These shells are 3,000 years older than Clovis fluted points found throughout North America, and 2,300 years older than points previously found at the same site.
This makes them the oldest stone ammunition in America, according to experts in an article published in the journal Science Advances. "It's one thing to say, 'We think people were here in the Americas 16,000 years ago,' it's another thing to measure that by finding the artifacts they left behind," says anthropologist Loren Davis, head of the team that found the spikes.
Previously, researchers working at Cooper's Ferry had found simple scales and pieces of bone that indicated prehistoric human presence. But the discovery of the shells reveals new insights into how early Americans expressed "complex thoughts through technology."
The Salmon River site where the weapons were found is on the traditional land of the Nez Perce, a Shahaptian-speaking tribe known for wearing nose rings. Today, the area where they lived, on the lower reaches of the Snake River and its tributaries the Salmon River and Clearwater Creek, is owned by the federal administration.
The points are revealing not only because of their age, but also because of their similarity to projectiles found in Hokkaido, Japan, which date to a very similar time period, between 16,000 and 20,000 years ago. As Davis explains in a statement, the presence of this munition in Idaho reinforces the hypothesis that there are early genetic and cultural connections between the Ice Age peoples of Northeast Asia and North America.
“The first peoples of North America possessed cultural knowledge that they used to survive and prosper over time. Some of that wisdom can be seen in the way people made stone tools," says the Oregon State University expert, who has been studying the Cooper's Ferry site since the 1990s.
Comparing these slender projectile points -some complete and others broken, but all of them characterized by two distinct ends, one sharp and one rounded- with those of other sites of the same age and older, it can be seen that social networks existed where shared technological knowledge.
The researchers note that the ammunition was likely attached to darts, rather than arrows or spears, and despite their small size, they were deadly weapons. “There is a belief that the first projectiles had to be large to kill big game; however, the smaller dart-mounted points would penetrate deep, causing tremendous internal damage. Any known animal can be hunted with weapons like these," Davis says.
The anthropologist and his team have also discovered a series of pits at the archaeological site, showing an emerging picture of early human life in the Pacific Northwest. In the past, the area included a food processing area where the remains of an extinct horse have been found.
