Archaeologists Uncover Oldest Weapons Ever Found in North America

It’s been a very long time since there was the consensus among archaeologists regarding the existence of humans in North America around 13,000 years ago. This timeline which was relied upon are the artifacts that were found which were considered to be between 12,700 and 13,000 years old, including weapons. Now, a new discovery in Texas could throw that theory is rightly based upon the previous findings.

The team of Researchers from Texas A&M, Baylor University, and the University of Texas have revealed that they found some artifacts which they believe to be spear points that were used by human hunters that may be around 15,500 years ago. This discovery puts significance on the accepted timeline for the settlement of North America a really huge margin which may invite new theories and uncover some new facts, scientists may be forced to rethink when and where the groups of humans resided and the conditions of their depletion into what is now called the United States. Michael Waters, a geologist at Texas A&M University and the lead author of the new study said that he observed “This discovery is significant because almost all pre-Clovis sites have stone tools, but spear points have yet to be found,” he further mentioned that “The dream has always been to find diagnostic artifacts—like projectile points—that can be recognized as older than Clovis.” Another important member of the team, Joshua Keene, a Texas A&M who is a researcher and a co-author of the study. “When we first found that intact spear point we lost our minds, we had never seen anything quite like it, at least not in Texas!” Now with this new study it has been clicking in the mind that it’s easy to see why determining when human breed known to be existed is such a difficult task to be determined. It may be adopted that smaller groups may have come and gone over the point of time and progress would have been slow over time which resulted in the depletion. It is still to reach on the right decision that whether this new discovery signifies a large-scale movement into North America far earlier than was previously known, or if it’s nothing more than a ambiguity, remains to be seen with some more observation and theories.

By- Anuja Arora

Content: https://www.history.com/news/oldest-weapons-discovery-spearpoints-texas