New research confirms that humans used poisoned weapons at least 60,000 years ago—over 50,000 years earlier than previously known. This discovery, detailed in Science Advances on January 7th, highlights the surprisingly sophisticated hunting strategies of early human populations in South Africa. The evidence comes from five quartz arrowheads found at the Umhlatuzana rock-shelter, still bearing traces of a potent toxin derived from the Boophone disticha plant, commonly known as “gifbol” or “poisonous onion.”
The Discovery and Its Significance
The arrowheads were originally unearthed in 1990, but only now has advanced geochemical analysis confirmed both their age and the presence of the gifbol poison. This is the earliest direct evidence of poisoned weapons in the archaeological record. Before this, the oldest known poisoned arrowheads dated back less than 7,000 years.
The team, led by Stockholm University archaeologist Sven Isaksson, used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to detect the poison’s unique alkaloid signature. They cross-referenced their findings with samples from 18th-century poisoned arrows collected by Swedish naturalist Carl Peter Thunberg, confirming the consistency of the toxin across millennia.
A Complex Hunting Strategy
Gifbol isn’t a fast-acting poison. This means ancient hunters using it wouldn’t have seen immediate results. Instead, they would’ve had to track their prey for extended periods while the toxin took effect. This implies a level of planning, patience, and understanding of animal behavior rarely attributed to early humans.
The researchers emphasize that the hunters didn’t need to understand the exact chemistry of the poison to use it effectively. What they did need was procedural knowledge – the ability to identify, extract, and apply the toxin reliably. This demonstrates that early humans possessed a knowledge system that involved “advanced planning, abstraction, and causal reasoning.”
What This Means for Our Understanding of Early Humans
The fact that this poison may have been independently discovered multiple times suggests a high degree of human ingenuity and adaptability. Whether it was a continuous practice or a re-emerging technique over tens of thousands of years, the consistent use of gifbol underscores the cognitive complexity of our ancestors.
The implications of this study are clear: early humans were not simply reacting to their environment, but actively manipulating it with a level of intelligence previously underestimated.
The study challenges the conventional narrative of early human technology, showing that sophisticated hunting methods, involving chemical toxins and long-term tracking, were present far earlier than previously thought.
