Ground-breaking study finds Sri Lanka has earliest evidence of Bow & Arrow technology outside of Africa to date

Colombo (News 1st); A groundbreaking study has found, early humans living in Sri Lanka some 48,000 years ago crafted tools from animal bones and used them to hunt animals, especially monkeys and squirrels. https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/24/eaba3831

The study was authored by an experienced team of researchers including several Sri Lankans.

They are Noel Amano, Oshan Wedage, Siran Deraniyagala, M.M Pathmalal, Nimal Perera, Nicole Boivin, Michael D. Petraglia & Patrick Roberts.

Image Credit : Max Planck Institute

This study represents the earliest evidence of the use of bow and arrow technology outside of Africa to date.

Last year, researchers released a study analyzing monkey and squirrel bones found in the Fa-Hien Lena cave in Sri Lanka and the research revealed early humans hunted them.

This cave is also the site of the earliest fossil appearance of Homo sapiens in South Asia.

Some of the bones in the cave had been fashioned into tools, so the researchers analyzed them to understand how our early ancestors managed to successfully hunt such quick-moving small animals in the rain-forest.

This discovery predates evidence of bow and arrow technology found in Europe around 20,000 years ago.

"These researches prove that early humans have used bows, arrows and other types of equipment to successfully blend in with the surrounding environment and it shows the methods in which they did so," Senior Professor at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura M. M. Pathmalal said. 

The Senior Professor added that this research shows how they fished, how they used to hunt, and how they used technology to build these weapons.

Oshan Vedage, a Lecturer at the Department of History and Archeology at the University of Sri Jayawardenapura who was a member of the research team said: "If we consider the weapon usage of the prehistoric humans we can see that they have often used arrows."

"There was a huge question as to how these early humans developed the bow and arrow. We were able to scientifically provide an answer to this question after the research," Oshan Wedage added. 

News 1st filed a report on the Fa-hein Lena Cave excavation in 2009 and will continue to follow the progress of prehistoric archaeological excavations in Sri Lanka, revealing this islands ancient story.