00:00Scientists have discovered the world's oldest known poison weapons from a South African rock shelter.
00:04Traces of two plant poisons have been found on 60,000-year-old arrowheads crafted by hunter-gatherers during the
00:10Stone Age.
00:11Scientists sampled residue coating the arrowheads and identified two toxins that likely came from the milky sap of a type
00:17of tumbleweed,
00:18known locally as gifbol, which translates to poison bulb.
00:22Anthropologists have reported this plant being the main hunting poison in southern Africa for centuries.
00:27By slowly poisoning prey, it cuts hunting time.
00:30But because the poison's effects aren't immediate,
00:32this discovery suggests that ancient hunters were smart enough to understand how to use the poison and plan ahead.
00:38This discovery pushes back the use of poison weapons by over 50,000 years,
00:42with the previous oldest poison arrow dating to 7,000 years ago.
00:46That evidence came from a site called Kruger Cave, roughly 400 miles from the new discovery,
00:51where scientists found ancient poison and arrowheads inside an animal bone.
00:55Several modern-day hunter-gatherer groups use poison while hunting.
00:58For example, the Jituanzi san in Namibia apply poison made from leaf beetle larvae to the tips of the arrows
01:04to take down antelope or wildebeest.
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