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Stone Age hunters in northern Europe made the sharp ends of their weapons from a surprising raw material: human bone. The choice may have had a symbolic purpose, such as imbuing the arrows with the skill of a dead expert hunter.

Before the arrival of farmers, Europe was inhabited by Stone Age hunter-gatherers. They roamed a landscape very different to today. The planet was deep in a glacial period, so lots of water was locked up in ice sheets at the poles 鈥� and sea levels were many metres lower than they are now. As a result, Britain was connected to mainland Europe by a vast expanse called Doggerland, which was finally submerged around 8000 years ago.

Archaeologists have collected hundreds of barbed points made of bone, which were deposited on Doggerland and now wash up on the shores of the Netherlands.

鈥淲e are quite sure they are projectile points,鈥� says Joannes Dekker at Leiden University in the Netherlands. They were either the points of throwing weapons like spears, or of arrows. He suspects they were arrowheads, but says we cannot be sure.

Dekker and his colleagues studied nine barbed bone points. Radiocarbon dating revealed that they were between 7300 and 9500 years old. The researchers also extracted preserved protein from the bone, which they used to identify the species.

Seven of the points were made from the bones and antlers of red deer. But the remaining two were made of human bones.

These weren鈥檛 purely ceremonial objects, but practical tools, says Dekker. 鈥淭hey have been resharpened. They show use-wear.鈥�

Several cultures have used human bones in similar ways, but it is relatively rare, says Dekker, and always strictly regulated. 鈥淵ou can鈥檛 just willy-nilly use [such] a bone.鈥�

We cannot know why the Stone Age hunter-gatherers used human bones to make points for their hunting weapons, says Dekker. But in other hunter-gatherer societies, bones are often used to invoke the characteristics of their former owners.

For example, deer bones have been used with the intention of benefitting from the animal鈥檚 traits. 鈥淲hen you use the material of a species, it鈥檚 often used to invoke the characteristic stereotype of that species. The deer is elegant, it鈥檚 swift-footed, so the arrow made of deer bone, you try to force it to be the same,鈥� says Dekker.

鈥淲ith human bone, it seems to be linked to the identity of the individual,鈥� he says. For instance, the bones of particularly talented hunters may have been favoured because people may have believed they were imbued with that person鈥檚 skill.

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