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Poisoned Arrows of the Stone Age in South Africa Reveal Use of Toxins and Advanced Hunting Strategies 60 Thousand Years Ago.
Hunter-gatherers who lived in South Africa during the Stone Age had already mastered the use of poisoned arrows around 60 thousand years ago, according to a new scientific study.
The research identified residues of plant toxins on arrow tips used in hunting, demonstrating that these human groups employed complex, planned strategies based on deep knowledge of local plants.
The discovery, published this week, repositions the timeline of hunting technologies and reinforces the idea that advanced cognitive skills emerged much earlier than previously thought.
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Poisoned Arrows Change the Understanding of Hunting in the Stone Age
The identification of poisoned arrows represents the oldest known record of this type of technology.
Until now, direct evidence of the use of poison in hunting weapons was thousands of years more recent.
The find indicates that as early as the Late Pleistocene, modern humans combined tools, toxic plants, and strategic planning to enhance hunting efficiency.
Moreover, the deliberate use of toxins reveals that these groups understood not only how to injure an animal but also how to monitor its effects over time, reducing physical effort and risks during the chase.
How Toxins Were Used in Poisoned Arrows
The researchers analyzed quartz arrow tips found in the Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter, in KwaZulu-Natal.
On these pieces, two plant alkaloids associated with the Boophone disticha plant, locally known as gifbol or “poison bulb,” were detected.
According to the study, the hunters likely extracted the poison by piercing or cutting the bulb of the plant.
Then, they dipped the tips of the arrows into the toxic substance, which could be concentrated by heat or exposure to sunlight. Thus, the poisoned arrows acted not immediately, but progressively.
Advanced Thinking Behind Hunting with Toxins
“In persistence hunting, poisoned arrows usually did not kill the prey instantly,” said Sven Isaksson, the lead author of the study. “Instead, the poison helped hunters reduce the time and energy needed to track and exhaust an injured animal.”
This type of strategy requires cause-and-effect reasoning, as well as the ability to anticipate future consequences.
For Isaksson, this reinforces that Stone Age humans possessed complex cultural knowledge and well-developed hunting practices.
Types of Toxins and Their Effects on Hunting
Plant toxins can act in different ways. Some are myotoxins, which destroy muscle tissue, while others are neurotoxins, affecting the nervous system.
Hunter-gatherers likely knew which parts of the animal could be safely consumed after slaughter.
“Some toxins are only dangerous if they enter the bloodstream and are harmless when ingested,” explained Isaksson. “Others can be easily destroyed by heat and, therefore, neutralized by cooking.”
Chemical Evidence Preserved for Millennia
Despite having been buried for tens of thousands of years, five of the ten analyzed tips still presented detectable residues of the alkaloids bufotenin and epibufotenin.
This was possible because these substances do not dissolve easily in water, favoring their preservation in the soil.
Even in small quantities, these toxins can be lethal to rodents in minutes and cause severe symptoms in humans, such as respiratory paralysis and pulmonary edema.
Cultural Continuity in the Use of Poisoned Arrows
For comparison, the scientists also examined arrow tips about 250 years old, collected in South Africa and brought to Sweden.
Surprisingly, they contained the same alkaloids, suggesting a long cultural tradition in the use of plant toxins in hunting.
“Finding traces of the same poison in both prehistoric and historical arrow tips was crucial,” emphasized Isaksson.
According to him, the chemical stability of these substances explains how they survived for so long.
What the Discovery Reveals About Prehistoric Humans
For Justin Bradfield from the University of Johannesburg, the evidence confirms long-held archaeological suspicions.
“This demonstrates advanced planning, strategy, and causal reasoning — something very difficult to prove in people who lived so long ago,” he stated.
The discovery also reinforces the importance of the bow and arrow as a fundamental technology of Homo sapiens, differentiating it from other hominids.
Archaeologist Ludovic Slimak notes that the bow was not a late invention, but a complex tool that accompanied human expansion across the world.
New Paths for Stone Age Archaeology
Before this find, the oldest evidence of poisoned arrows came from contexts up to 6,700 years old.
Now, the timeline drastically shifts back. Isaksson and his team plan to investigate other sites in South Africa to assess how widespread this practice was.
“This reveals something new about how people of that time thought, planned, and understood the world around them,” concluded the researcher.
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