An ancient hunting kit discovered deep in the San Esteban rock shelter in Big Bend National Park in Texas may be the oldest surviving weapon system ever found in North America.
Texas Parks and Wildlife DepartmentSome artifacts found in 6,000-year-old hunting gear.
“We don’t have the socket ends yet, which is necessary to understand how the anterior shafts were connected to the main shafts,” Devin Pettigrew, an associate professor at the Big Bend Research Center, told Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. “We’re also missing the proximal (hand) end of the atlatl, but we know enough about the type to reconstruct what it might have looked like.”
The researchers also found a straight-flying boomerang among the hunting tools. Ancient cultures likely used this artifact to hunt small game. This weapon, along with other finds from the San Esteban rock shelter, sheds light on the daily lives of the people who once lived in the area.
Uncovering the Ancient History of Texas' Big Bend Region
The discovery of a pile of ancient human feces next to a weapons cache promises new research into the diets and lifestyles of Native American cultures. In addition, the folded hide of a pronghorn, North America's fastest land mammal, reveals the hunting habits and skills of the people who inhabited the area.
“We were just sitting there and looking at [the skin] in amazement,” Bryon Schroeder, director of the Big Bend Research Center, told Texas Parks & Wildlife Magazine. “This is a moment in time… Someone folded this skin and put it right on top of this rock. And no one touched it for 6,000 years.”
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