East African Bone Technology Analyzed

ZANZIBAR, TANZANIA—Sci-News reports that seven bone tools from East Africa’s Kuumbi Cave, including five projectile points, a bone awl, and a notched bone tube, were examined by a team led by Michelle Langley of Australian National University.

(Michelle C. Langley et al.)

The researchers suggest the 13,000-year-old projectile points, which are slender and short, may have been too small to bring down the zebra, buffalo, waterbuck, common reedbuck, bushbuck, and bush pig whose bones were also found in Kuumbi Cave. Langley suggests that the projectiles were used in conjunction with poison, perhaps made from the poisonous fruit of the Mkunazi plant. (Charcoal from the Mkunazi plant was found during a previous investigation.)
(Archaeology Magazine, 24/06/2016)