Provided by Will Dunham
(Reuters.
Researchers said tools, in particular hunting implements, such as projectile points, were made of at least five large bones of the whale. Sperm whale bones were the most abundant, followed by fins, gray whales, right or arc head whales – two species that are not distinguished from the analysis of the study, and blue whales.
With the capabilities of sailors that people do not see only thousands of years later, the Ice Age hunter-gathers who performed these implements could not actually hunt whale for their resources in Biscay Bay, the Gulf of the Atlantic Ocean.
“These whales were probably opportunistic purchased from stuck animals or drifted carcasses instead of actively hunting,” said biomolecular archaeologist Krista McGrath of the autonomous University of Barcelona, published by The Research, published in Nature Communications.
“Most of the bones were recognized from the sea, the deep -sea species, such as the semen whale and the fins, which would have been very difficult to hunt for these prehistoric groups.
Researchers analyzed 71 whale bone artefacts were found at 27 caves or rocky shelters. The two oldest, both of the fin bones of the fins, came from Spain’s cantabria rascaño dating back to 20,500 years ago, and El Juyo dates back to 19,800 years ago.
The raw artifact age range was between 14,000 and over 20,000 years, but most of them were between 16,000 and 17 500 years.
The main raw material used to produce spear points at the time was the reindeer or red deer ants because it is less fragile and more flexible than the bone of terrestrial mammals. However, the whale bone has offered some advantages, including large dimensions with some projectile points in more than 16 inches (40 cm) in length, which is difficult to achieve using an ant.
“They can be very long and thick and were probably caught on spear-style projectiles rather than arrows. They are usually found as fragments, many of which with use-related fractures, and they were probably used to hunting the main game animals-deer and red deer, horse, bison and ibx.” Pélon, a horse, in the center of the bison and Ibex.
Bone tools were used by members of human evolutionary origin, dating back well before our species Homo sapiens emerged more than 300,000 years ago in Africa. In this study, the artifacts studied in this study reduced the oldest known whale bones for tool production from 1000 to 2000.
Objects have previously been found in various places and are kept in the museum collections. Researchers used modern analytical methods to determine the species from which the bones came from, and the age of the artifacts.
People living in this prehistory were usually domestic hunters who received most of their livelihoods from the big hoopic mammal hunting, said Pétillon. New conclusions enhance their understanding of the exploitation of their seaside resources, Péllon added.
Previous studies have shown that the people of the Ice Age have collected sea shells, hunted sea birds and fish for sea fish as a supplementation of terrestrial animal meat.
“The new conclusions tell us that these prehistoric groups were probably very well adapted to this coastal environment and probably had deep local ecological knowledge and understanding of their coastal habitats,” McGrath said.
“Whale bones would have been more than just tools for tools. There is evidence that they are also used as fuel – among other things, the bone contains a large amount of oil. And the remaining whale would definitely be used – teeth or baleens, depending on species, meat, skin. One whale provides a lot of resources,” said McGrath.
(Will Dunham’s message in Washington, edited by Rosalba O’Brien)