A research team from Texas A&M University hypothesizes that ancient hunters intended to use a spear to puncture the lungs of a woolly mammoth but unfortunately missed their target.
The oldest spear in the Americas was excavated at the Manis site in Washington, USA, during the late 1970s. Analysis results indicate that ancient people crafted the spear from the femur of a woolly mammoth, a prehistoric relative of modern elephants. The Manis spear was embedded in the ribcage of a woolly mammoth, representing the oldest direct evidence of this species being hunted in the Americas.
Reconstruction of the 13,900-year-old Manis spear. (Photo: Michael Waters).
Michael Waters, an anthropology professor at Texas A&M University, and his colleagues utilized computed tomography and 3D software to separate every bone fragment and magnify the images six times. They then pieced the images together to understand the shape of the specimen before it was embedded in the rib. The results of this study were published in the journal *Science Advances* on February 1.
The spear thrown by the ancient hunter penetrated through the skin and tissue of the woolly mammoth, ultimately striking the rib. The hunter aimed to thrust the spear between the ribs to rupture the animal’s lungs but missed. Previously, Waters and his team dated the rib in research published in 2011 in *Science*.
With an age of 13,900 years, the Manis spear predates the Clovis stone spear by at least 900 years, which Waters also studied. The Clovis spear, discovered in Texas, dates back to 12,750 – 13,050 years ago. According to researchers’ hypotheses, the people of the Clovis culture were among the first inhabitants of the Americas, having crossed from Siberia to Alaska via the Bering Strait during the last Ice Age.
The use of weapons like the Manis spear and various stone tools throughout North America demonstrates that the earliest people who entered and explored the Americas brought with them diverse technologies and tools, enabling them to adapt to the local environment and survive.
