80,000 year old arrow heads found in Asia: Modern San Bushmen hunters spread around Earth early

 possibly even arrowheads, dating to nearly 80,000 years ago. If confirmed, this would place the origins of bow-and-arrow technology tens of thousands of years earlier than many archaeologists once believed....

the most intriguing—micropoints, small triangular flakes averaging just 18 millimeters wide and often weighing little more than a gram.

These micropoints showed microscopic impact traces consistent with high-velocity penetration, making them unlikely candidates for thrusting spears. Instead, their lightweight design fits better with arrows.

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https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0328390

Obi-Rakhmat would push the use of arrow-like projectiles back to 80,000 years ago, deep within the Middle Paleolithic. That predates the commonly accepted timeline for bow-and-arrow technology, usually associated with Homo sapiens populations in Africa around 60–70,000 years ago.

This raises the question of who the makers were. Fossils from Obi-Rakhmat include remains with both Homo sapiens and Neanderthal-like traits, fueling debate over whether the occupants were an admixed population. The projectile evidence now adds another layer to the mystery, suggesting that complex weapon systems may have been present in Central Asia earlier than expected.

“Evidence for small, lightweight armatures at Obi-Rakhmat demonstrates the possibility of diverse hunting strategies during the Middle Paleolithic,” the authors note, “challenging assumptions that complex projectile technology only emerged during the Upper Paleolithic.”

For archaeologists and anthropologists, the implications extend beyond weaponry. Projectile technology has long been linked to shifts in social organization, cooperative hunting, and even cognitive planning. If arrows were part of the toolkit this early, the behavioral capacities of hominins in Central Asia may need to be re-evaluated.

Open questions

The evidence is still limited, and the researchers themselves stress the need for larger samples to confirm the findings. It remains unclear whether these tools were widely used for hunting or represent early experiments with new technology. Further excavations may help establish whether such lightweight projectiles persisted in later layers, bridging the Middle to Upper Paleolithic transition.