archaeologist have discovered the world ’s oldest known fishhooks—23,000 - year - old implements carve from sea escargot shells — inside a cave on Japan ’s Okinawa Island , Sciencereports . The finding , recentlypublishedin the journalPNAS , provide new sixth sense into both Okinawa Island ’s history of human habitation and the early habit of maritime technology in the Asian Pacific . They suggest such tool use began in the region far earlier than experts had believed .
human moved to Okinawa Island and its surrounding sister islands around 50,000 years ago , but scientist used to think that the region ’s resource were too light to support other people for prolonged stop of time . harmonize to CNN , this notion was challenged by a group of Japanese archaeologists , who have been excavate Sakitari Cave , a limestone cave that sit a little over a naut mi inland from Okinawa Island ’s southern seacoast , since 2009 .
Long ago , fisherman flow out in the cavern to get crabs and freshwater snails migrating downstream . Archaeologists get word the fishhooks — one finished , the other unfinished — along with other artefact including beads , creature , human remains , and the burn off residue of foods including toad , chick , and eel . Thanks to these finding , the research worker propose that man may have incessantly lived on Okinawa Island for 35,000 years now .
These ancient inhabitants were also sophisticated enough to bang that certain foods taste better seasonally , TheGuardianpoints out . The burnt crabby person persist suggest that the crustaceans were caught during their tumble migratory period , when they ’re largest and tasty .
Perhaps most importantly , the fishhooks help reshape the timeline of marine engineering . Experts knew Paleolithic people had created and conform tools to tap marine resources in Australia and Indonesia , but until now , they had no grounds that they did so in other geographic regions .
[ h / tScience ]
Know of something you think we should cover ? Email us attips@mentalfloss.com .
