Are these some of the earliest weapons in human history? In this video Tristan Hughes speaks to Dr Annemieke Milks, Researcher at the University of Reading, about the significance of the Schöningen spears. These wooden spears prove that early humans, including Neanderthals, were hunting and interacting in complex social groups 300,000 years ago.
The Schöningen spears are a set of ten wooden weapons from the Palaeolithic Age, excavated between 1994 and 1999 from the 'Spear Horizon' in the open-cast lignite mine in Schöningen, Germany. The spears are the oldest hunting weapons ever discovered and were found together with animal bones and stone and bone tools, providing proof early human ancestors were much closer to modern humans in both complex social structure and technical ability than previously thought.
Dr Milks shows Tristan how these spears were built and the range of possibilities for how they were used. Wooden spears survived as a technology for hundreds of thousands of years, suggesting they were used effectively by hunters throughout human history.
