The unearthing of wooden artifacts from Schöningen’s Spear Horizon has greatly rewritten our understanding of early human evolution and their military capabilities. Located amidst the northern European Plains, Schöningen has been a site for archeological excavations since 1981, with numerous Middle Pleistocene sites then surfacing. The ten spears and two double-pointed sticks, or throwing sticks, from Schöningen 13 II-4 rank amongst the most famous discoveries and have changed the paradigm in the debate on early human hunting strategies.
Schöningen 13 II-4 is situated at a former interglacial lakeshore and has been dated to the Marine Isotope Stage 9 (337 to 300 thousand years ago). The excellent state of preservation of the wooden artifacts has made this site one of the most important Paleolithic sites about early human behavior and technology related to woodworking. Hundreds of natural and worked wood remains have been found within the open woodland landscape, which is dominated by alder, birch, and willow, making the site ideal for researching early wooden tools.
Indirect evidence for human woodworking comes in the form of use-wear on lithics and is dated to 2-1.5 million years in age. In contrast, direct evidence of wooden artifacts originates from Africa and the Middle East and dates to 780,000 years. The discovery of early wooden hunting projectiles, such as spears and throwing sticks, has thoroughly rewired our perceptions regarding the capabilities of early human hunting, social interaction, and hominin cognition. The earliest European wooden spears, which include the remarkable assemblage from Schöningen, in Germany, date from 400 to 120 thousand years. The earliest throwing sticks are also known from Schöningen, although other possible examples are found later in Africa.
The Schöningen site has also yielded some domestic tools made up of split woods, which almost certainly represent early domestic tools. Of these, 24 had a single-pointed tool end, and 11 had a rounded tool end. These have seen usage in various applications. The pointed split woods-most of them in spruce-were used for tasks that required a degree of abrasiveness as supported by use-wear such as polish, crushing, and micro-splintering. While the rounded split woods were probably used as hide smoothers, they must have been used for other purposes, too, such as sewing reed mats or scaling fish.
In this regard, slings as a weapon can be related to the introduction of herding and farming. The need for an inexpensive and dependable method of herding animals and protecting them against predators probably made various inventions of the sling converge. Whereas the spear or the bow can be used by people with relatively little practice, the sling requires considerable time and material to become proficient, so it would be more properly restricted to shepherds who had both. The earliest evidence of sling use is likely to come from early herding cultures, more than 15,000 years ago.
Innovations in the tools and methods used by early humans, including wooded spears and throwing sticks to slings, testify to the ingenuity and adaptiveness of our ancestors. These findings further demonstrate not just early human military abilities but also give insight into the social and cognitive development of early humans.