Arrows found in 54,000 year-old cave

At Nature:

Last year, researchers excavating Grotte Mandrin claimed that the site held the earliest known evidence of Homo sapiens in Europe. In one of the cave’s archaeological levels, known as layer E, researchers co-led by cultural anthropologist Ludovic Slimak at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès in France identified a child’s tooth and thousands of stone tools. They concluded that the child had been a Homo sapiens.

Among the tools were hundreds of tiny points, many of which were as small as 1 centimetre wide, weighed only a few grams and were nearly identical in shape and size. The smallest points were similar to other arrowheads made by ancient and modern humans, and some contained similar fractures and other damage at their tips, which could have been created by high-velocity impact. – Ewen Callaway (February 22, 2023)

Where is the Stupid Brute when we need him? Now that the Neanderthals have checked out of the program altogether … Can we find an out-of-work actor and teach him to be a Stupid Brute?

Translation from French isn’t offered but this is what the cave excavation looks like.

You may also wish to read: At Smithsonian Magazine: Neanderthals hunted and butchered massive elephants. “…yet another piece of evidence to suggest that humans’ closest ancient relatives were more sophisticated and skilled than the brutish oafs popular culture has made them out to be.”

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