125,000-Year-Old Poisoned Weapons Discovered in Saudi Arabia

A Site Discovered in the Heart of the Desert

Today, the region is hot, extremely dry and covered by vast dunes, located in the Rub' al-Khali, one of the most arid deserts on the planet. Yet researchers have established that it was once occupied by a freshwater lake of about 340 square kilometers, up to 29 meters deep in places.

According to Chris Clarkson, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Germany and at Griffith University in Australia, the landscape of the time is striking: "Hippopotamuses and huge buffalo living around a lake where the Empty Quarter now stretches" bear witness to dramatic climate change.

More Than 5,500 Stone Artifacts

Archaeologists have recorded more than 5,500 stone objects at the site, along with exceptionally well-preserved plant remains, such as fibers, resins and wood. Several points show impact marks consistent with hunting large animals.

Microscopic analysis also revealed traces of animal tissue near the points. The distribution of the tools matches the clusters of bones, suggesting that the lakeshore was a central place for hunting and processing game.

Points Impregnated With Poison

Several points carry chemical residues linked to the poison tree Acokanthera schimperi, known for its toxicity. Native to East and Central Africa as well as southern Arabia, this plant has historically been used by African hunters to coat spear and arrow tips, in order to paralyze or kill game.

An open question remains: how did the hunters avoid poisoning themselves when eating the meat? Clarkson notes that "the effects of a poison depend on the substance, the dose and the way it enters the body," and that hunters are known to have sometimes cut away the flesh around a wound.

A More Sophisticated Technology Than Previously Thought

These discoveries show that early human populations mastered elaborate techniques. Because most of the materials used were organic, they have disappeared, which leads to an underestimation of their know-how. Clarkson stresses: "These were not simply people who knocked off flakes of stone," but craftsmen combining stone, wood, plant fibers, resins and potentially toxic substances.

Eleanor Scerri, an archaeologist at the Max Planck Institute who did not take part in the study, highlights the richness of the evidence, from the way the points were hafted to the spatial relationship between hunting tools and hippopotamus bones.

A Major Route Between Africa and Asia

The Arabian Peninsula lies between Africa and the rest of Asia and was an important corridor during the dispersal of humans across the world. Repeated episodes of increased rainfall may have made its otherwise hostile landscapes more habitable.

Jeffrey Rose, a Paleolithic archaeologist at the University of Algarve in Portugal, considers these sites rare in the region: "This is valuable data," especially since some flakes can be refitted together, indicating that the tools were made on site.