Wooden spear (Schöningen)
Lanza de madera (jabalina de Schöningen)
- Date
- c. 300 ka · confidence high
- Place
- Schöningen 13 II-4, Lower Saxony, Germany
- Credited to
- Homo heidelbergensis
- Field
- Conflict
What it is
At least nine spruce and pine spears up to 2.5 m long, balanced like modern javelins, alongside dozens of butchered horses. They are the oldest complete hunting weapons preserved.
Dating revised to c. 200–300 ka. The Clacton-on-Sea point (England, c. 400 ka) is older but fragmentary.
What it led to
- Planned cooperative hunting of large prey
- The need for complex communication to coordinate drives
- Working of wood with stone tools: incipient carpentry
- The first thrown weapons for hunting at a distance
Built on
- Acheulean handaxe (Mode 2)c. 1,76 Ma
- Control of firec. 1 Ma
- Acheulean handaxe (Mode 2)
- Control of fire
Made possible
- Hafting of stone pointsc. 500 ka
- Barbed bone harpoonc. 90 ka
- Ivory boomerangc. 40-42 ka
- Spear-thrower (atlatl)c. 20 ka
- Hafting of stone points
- Spear-thrower (atlatl)
- Barbed bone harpoon