Media release

From: Springer Nature

Palaeontology: Earliest-known evidence of tools made from whale bones *IMAGES*

Humans may have been making tools from whale bones up to 20,000 years ago, according to evidence presented in Nature Communications. The discovery of these tools helps broaden the understanding of early human use of whale remains and also provides a snapshot of ancient whale ecology.

Ancient humans living in coastal areas are likely to have used whales as a resource. However, prehistoric coastal archaeological sites are fragile and subject to rising sea levels, making reconstructing past interactions between humans and marine mammals a challenge.

Jean-Marc Pétillon and colleagues analyse 83 bone tools excavated from sites around the Bay of Biscay and 90 additional bones from Santa Catalina Cave, Spain. The authors used mass spectrometry and radiocarbon dating to identify the taxonomy and age of the samples. They find that the bones come from at least five species of large whales, the oldest of which are dated to approximately 19 – 20 thousand years ago, representing some of the earliest known evidence of human utilisation of whale remains as tools, according to the authors. The species identified include sperm whales, fin whales, blue whales, and right whales or bowhead whales (two species which are indistinguishable using this technique). These species are found in the Bay of Biscay to this day. The authors also identify the remains of grey whales, which are now mostly limited to the North Pacific Ocean and Arctic in modern day. Additional chemical data from the whale bone tools suggests that the feeding habits of the whales were slightly different than those species living today, pointing to behavioural or environmental changes.

These findings provide new evidence for the earliest human use of whale remains, particularly in coastal regions, shedding light on the changes in cetacean ecologies through the past 20 thousand years.