Semliki harpoon

The Semliki harpoon, also known as the Katanda harpoon, refers to complex harpoon heads carved from bone. It is from an archaelogic site on the Semliki River in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire) which dates back 90,000 years. [cite web|url=http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/268/5210/553|title=A middle stone age worked bone industry from Katanda, Upper Semliki Valley, Zaire|date=1995-04-28|publisher=Science 268 (5210): pp. 553-556 (American Association for the Advancement of Science, Washington, D.C., USA]

It seemed to substantiate that fishing and an "aquatic civilization" was likely in the region across eastern and northern Africa during the wetter climatic conditions of the early to mid-Holocene, as shown by other evidence at the lakeshore site of Ishango. [cite web|url=http://www.springerlink.com/content/g729728281324217/|title=Ishango revisited: new age determinations and cultural interpretations|date=1987-12|publisher=African Archaelogic Review 5 (1): 65-78 (Springer Netherlands)]

The site is littered with catfish bones and the hooks are the size to catch adult catfish, so investigators suspect the fisherman came to the site every year "to catch giant catfish." [cite web|url=http://discovermagazine.com/1995/aug/theslowcrawlforw555|title=The Slow Crawl Forward|publisher=Discover Magazine|date=August 1, 1995]

It is unlikely that the harpoons are much different than those used today (see reference for photos). [cite web|url=http://taos-telecommunity.org/EPOW/EPOW-Archive/archive_2008/EPOW-080609.htm|title=Harpoon Fishing in the Congo|publisher=EPOW|date=June 2008] [cite book|author=Delevoy, G.|date=1951|title=Encyclopedie du Congo Belge. Tome II. (Encyclopedia of Belgian Congo. Volume II.)]

Originally, the stone age was thought to have occurred only 26,000 years ago, but this pushes the time frame of development of tools back significantly.

Since that time, 700,000 year old flint tools have been found in Pakefield, Suffolk, UK, at a time when the climate there was much warmer. Human activity was thought to have been in Southern Europe 780,000 years ago, but it is not clear if this activity is ascribable to an ancestor of modern man or to that of an earlier hominid. [cite web|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4526264.stm|title=Tools unlock secrets of early man|date=2005-12-14|publisher=BBC News, London, UK]

The archaelogic site coincides with the range of the Ef%C3%A9 Pygmies, which have been shown by mitochondrial dNA analyses to be one of the oldest races still existing on earth.

References