“Archaeologists Unearth Ancient Mystery: 7,000-Year-Old Poison Arrowheads Discovered in South African Cave’s Strangest Find!”
Imagine stumbling upon ancient arrowheads that not only hint at the ingenuity of our prehistoric ancestors but also reveal their flair for toxic mixology! In a remarkable discovery at the Kruger Cave in South Africa, researchers unearthed bone arrowheads dating back a staggering 7,000 years, skillfully coated with a cocktail of some seriously potent poisons: ricin, digitoxin, and strophanthidin. That’s right—these were not your average hunting tools. They were precision-designed to immobilize prey, showcasing an advanced understanding of botany and pharmacology far ahead of their time. The implications are mind-boggling; could it be that our ancestors were not just survivalists but also early pioneer chemists with a taste for the dramatic? Join me as we unravel this incredible find, shedding light on how ancient humans wielded nature’s deadliest secrets to become formidable hunters in a competitive world. LEARN MORE.
Perhaps the world’s oldest weapons equipped with a multi-ingredient poison cocktail, these arrowheads were laced with deadly ricin as well as digitoxin and strophanthidin, which can stop the heart.
Dr Aliénor DuhamelA scan of the 7,000-year-old antelope femur that contained the three poison-coated arrowheads.
In 1983, archaeologists excavated Kruger Cave in South Africa and found a 7,000-year-old femur bone that belonged to an antelope. Researchers then noted something unusual about the bone: three bone arrowheads had been embedded into its marrow cavity.
However, researchers at the time did not follow through with a more thorough examination of these arrowheads. In fact, the bone was tucked away in storage at the University of Witwatersrand for nearly four decades until new archaeological investigations at Kruger Cave in 2022 prompted a re-examination of the femur and the arrowheads embedded within it.
This re-examination, led by Justin Bradfield of the University of Johannesburg, unveiled revelatory information about the hunting capabilities of prehistoric humans.
The team discovered that the arrowheads had been coated with a complex, multi-component hunting poison made with plants not native to the Kruger Cave area. This discovery shows that not only were these prehistoric humans technologically-advanced hunters, but they also may have had an extensive trade network to source the various plants used to make their poisons.
This find may represent the world’s oldest confirmed use of a poison cocktail specifically applied to arrowheads.
7,000-Year-Old Poison Arrows Found In The Antelope Femur Unearthed In Kruger Cave
Long after the archaeologists in 1983 declined to study the arrowheads, Bradfield and his colleagues believed they could learn more from these artifacts.
Writing for The Conversation, Bradfield says, “Along with other scientists from the University of Johannesburg, I suspected that the femur contained more than just sediment and degraded marrow… Our research has revealed that the femur’s contents are arguably the oldest multi-component arrow poison in the world. It’s a complex recipe combining at least two toxic plant ingredients. There’s also evidence of a third toxin.”
Bradfield clarifies that the use of poison for hunting is much older than these arrowheads, with evidence suggesting that some poisons were used as far back as 70,000 years ago. However, much of that evidence is “tentative at best and yet to be verified chemically.”
Through their analysis, Bradfield’s team learned that the arrowheads had been coated with a poison mixture that used at least two toxic plant ingredients, including cardiac glycosides known to disrupt heart function. In particular, they identified the presence of digitoxin and strophanthidin, which have been used historically in poisons associated with bow hunting, and ricinoleic acid, a byproduct of the toxic lectin ricin.
Bradfield, Duber, and Steenkamp.Kruger Cave in South Africa, marked where the antelope femur was discovered.
These compounds are found in separate plants, ones that do not occur naturally in the area surrounding Kruger Cave. Remains of these plants were also not found on any of the other materials excavated from Kruger Cave. According to Bradfield, this could suggest that the prehistoric hunters who crafted this poison either traveled a great distance to acquire the plants, or that there had once been an established, long-distance trade network for exchanging such plants.
“Researchers know that long-distance transport of sea shells, as ornaments and later as currency, had been happening throughout Africa long before 7,000 years ago. But the long-distance movement of non-domestic plants at so early a date is something we had not expected,” Bradfield writes. “The fact that people knew which plants to acquire, where to find them and how to use them effectively speaks volumes about the antiquity of traditional pharmacological knowledge systems.”
In either case, this research suggests — as much recent research has — that humans’ prehistoric ancestors were far more advanced than even many of the experts thought.
