Ancient Tools Reveal Early Human Ingenuity in Whale Bone Utilization

Recent archaeological discoveries have unveiled that humans in Western Europe crafted hunting implements from whale bones between 20,000 and 14,000 years ago. These findings highlight the resourcefulness of Late Paleolithic communities who scavenged the Atlantic shoreline for materials, demonstrating a sophisticated understanding of their environment.

Archaeologists found 71 tools and 60 bone fragments. These results are tied to at least five species of whales, including sperm whales, fin whales, blue whales, gray whales, and possibly right or bowhead whales. Seaside scavengers stripped the bones from beached marine mammals. They found these remains across a wide swath of sites along the Western European coast.

Radiocarbon dating yielded intriguing findings from the analysis of 37 whale bone artifacts. Most of these artifacts are from between 17,500 and 16,000 years ago, a time during which there was a peak in regional trade of these items. Taken together, the evidence points to very few tools from this sample dating before 16,000 years ago. Researchers recently discovered a spear point made from gray whale bone in a French rock shelter. Their analysis concluded that it was between 18,000 and 17,500 years old.

Continued excavation at a cave along Spain’s northern coast just recently led to another captivating find. Additional discoveries by archaeologists indicated that many of these bones had been purposefully fractured to access fatty oil, a rich energy supplement to the diets of prehistoric peoples.

“Late Paleolithic humans regularly frequented the seashore and used its resources,” stated Jean-Marc Pétillon, emphasizing the pivotal role marine resources played in their subsistence strategies. Further evidence points to the fact that both Homo sapiens and European Neandertals had diverse marine diets. This exciting result points to the rich, varied diets of these early humans.

The whale bone artifacts provide a window into the dietary practices of late prehistoric societies. They’re a showcase for these societies’ founding genius in making what they need from the materials at hand. Bone fragments from at least two individual whales were found at one site which dates to about 15,500 and 15,000 years ago. This find adds to the story of creativity and flexibility that defines that period, to be sure.