Arrows give the game away

BBC News August 26th … archaeologists in South Africa have unearthed stone points dated 64,000 years ago which were probably arrow heads. A microscope revealed traces of blood and bone. They also found traces of a glue – a plant based resin that was possibly used to fasten them to a wooden shaft. The use of bows and arrows as a hunting tool enabled humans to kill from a distance where previously they had used ambush tactics in order to move in with spears at fairly close quarters. The bow and arrow was a distinctive feature of the Bushmen when Europeans colonised the region but being small in numbers in comparison with crop growing cultures such as the Bantu they were in the end marginalised. The next question might be – who did the bow and arrow technology get from South Africa to other regions of the world?