60,000-Year-Old Poisoned Arrowheads Found in South Africa

Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest direct evidence of poisoned arrowheads, dating back 60,000 years, on tiny quartz tools excavated from a rock shelter in South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. The discovery, detailed in a study published Wednesday in Science Advances, reveals traces of toxic plant compounds on the artifacts, suggesting early humans employed sophisticated chemical knowledge to enhance their hunting prowess far earlier than previously documented.

The arrowheads, small quartz microliths unearthed in 1985 from the Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter, were analyzed using microchemical and biomolecular techniques by a team led by Sven Isaksson of Stockholm University and Marlize Lombard of the University of Johannesburg. Their examinations detected alkaloids including buphandrine and epibuphanisine, compounds derived from the milky exudate of Boophone disticha, a bulbous flowering plant native to southern Africa and known locally as gifbol or the poisonous onion. This plant's toxins have been used by Indigenous hunters in the region for centuries, often applied as a sticky resin to arrow tips after heating and processing.

The residues appeared on five of ten sampled...