The bone tools range in age from 14,000 to 20,000 years old and were made from whale bones that washed ashore in the Bay of Biscay.
Nature CommunicationsWhalebone tool specimens collected along the coasts of France and Spain.
“The discovery of whale bone objects in itself is nothing new,” Jean-Marc Petillon, one of the study’s authors, explained in an email to All That’s Interesting. “What’s new in this study is the identification of the whale species and the direct dating of the objects, which was technically impossible when the identification was first made.”
The researchers analyzed collagen protein sequences to determine which animals the tools came from. They found that of the 83 bone tools, 71 were “confirmed to be cetaceans,” including dolphins, porpoises, and whales. Meanwhile, eight bones belonged to “large land mammals,” and four bone tools could not be identified.
In addition, scientists were able to identify certain whale species among the cetacean bone tools. Analysis showed that they were made from the bones of sperm whales, fin whales, blue whales and gray whales. Among the bones were also either right whales or bowhead whales, which could not be distinguished.
Radiocarbon dating indicates that these prehistoric whalebone tools are between 14,000 and 20,000 years old, making them “the oldest known evidence of whalebone processing.”
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