Ancient humans began making tools from whale bones at least 20,000 years ago, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications. The study details how prehistoric coastal communities exploited whale carcasses for tool-making, according to The Independent.
An international team of scientists from Spain, France, and Canada discovered that whale bones were used to manufacture tools and weapons, which were likely traded over long distances, indicating their value. The research was led by the French National Centre for Scientific Research and the French National Museum of Natural History, with contributions from numerous research centers and Spanish universities.
The scientists analyzed nearly two hundred bone tools found in sites around the Bay of Biscay, including 83 bone tools from archaeological sites and 90 additional bones recovered from the Santa Catalina cave in the Spanish Basque Country, as reported by Gizmodo. These artifacts date back up to 20,000 years and were attributed to the Magdalenian culture of the Upper Paleolithic period.
Using techniques such as Zooarchaeology by Mass Spectrometry (ZooMS) and radiocarbon dating, the researchers identified the taxonomy and age of the samples. "We were able to identify species such as the sperm whale, the common whale, and the blue whale (all still present in the Bay of Biscay today), as well as the gray whale, a species now mostly restricted to the North Pacific and Arctic oceans, using a technique called ZooMS," said Krista McGrath, a biomolecular archaeologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and co-author of the study, according to Popular Science.
At least five different species of large whales contributed their bones to Magdalenian technology, including sperm whales, fin whales, blue whales, gray whales, and either right whales or bowhead whales. This finding provides insights into the ecology of the region during the last glacial period. "These whale species remained the same despite the great environmental difference between the Late Pleistocene and today," said Jean-Marc Pétillon, an archaeologist at the University of Toulouse-Jean Jaurès and senior author of the study, as reported by Science Alert.
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The whale bones were fashioned into narrow projectiles for hunting, primarily as projectile points likely hafted on spear-style projectiles rather than arrows. Most objects made of whale bone are weapon elements, indicating their importance in hunting medium and large mammals that inhabited the Bay of Biscay during the Magdalenian period.
The researchers believe that prehistoric coastal groups took advantage of whale strandings to harvest bones for tools, indicating the importance of whales as a resource. "Ancient humans weren't necessarily hunting whales. More likely, they were scavenging the bodies of beached whales and fashioning their dense, heavy bones into tools to hunt reindeer or bison," said Pétillon, according to The Independent.
Between 20,000 and 14,000 years ago, groups of hunter-gatherers in the Gulf of Biscay increasingly turned to whale material for tool-making and exchanged these tools over long distances.
Chemical analysis of the bones revealed differences in the diet of ancient whales compared to their modern relatives, indicating possible changes in their behavior or in the marine environment. The presence of gray whales in the Bay of Biscay at the end of the last glaciation offers unique insight into the richness of the marine ecosystem during that period. "The identification of species that no longer inhabit a region clearly illustrates how species distributions can change over time," noted McGrath.
However, the greatest challenge to studying coastal prehistoric communities is that those coastlines no longer exist due to erosion and changing sea levels. Many coastal archaeological sites have been submerged due to rising sea levels, making it difficult to preserve evidence of early human relationships with marine mammals. "Even though the Paleolithic seashore itself is no longer accessible, the analysis of these whale bones brought inland by the hunter-gatherers opens a unique window into whale ecology and the marine environments in the northeastern Atlantic at that period," the researchers explained, according to Gizmodo.
The research underscores the value of revisiting previously collected objects and seeing what new information can be discovered with new techniques. "Even old collections, excavated more than one century ago with field methods now outdated, and stored in museums for a long time, can bring new scientific information when approached with the right analytical tools," said Pétillon.