In a Polish cave once used by Ice Age hunters, archaeologists have uncovered something that piqued their interest: a boomerang carved from mammoth ivory, dated to around 42,000 years ago.
The curved, 72-centimeter tool shows clear signs of human craftsmanship—polishing, shaping, and even traces of red pigment. It was likely used as a non-returning boomerang, the kind designed to strike prey rather than loop back midair.
But it’s the age that makes it remarkable. Found in Obłazowa Cave in southern Poland, the artifact was dated using animal bones and a human thumb bone nearby. Bayesian modeling placed the site’s main occupation between 42,810 and 38,550 years ago, with the boomerang likely created between 42,290 and 39,280 years ago. That makes it the oldest known boomerang in Europe by a wide margin.
Researchers believe the boomerang was made by modern humans, not Neanderthals. DNA extracted from the thumb bone confirmed its Homo sapiens origin. The tool was discovered alongside fossil shells, beads, and pendants—items that hint at ritual or symbolic behavior, instead of utility.
Ivory wouldn’t have been easy to work with. Unlike wood, which rarely survives in the archaeological record, mammoth tusk is tough, brittle, and unforgiving. Shaping it into something that could cut through air with any kind of accuracy takes planning, precision, and time. No ivory scraps were found nearby, which suggests the boomerang was made elsewhere and carried in.
That kind of effort points to something beyond hunting. Whether it was a status object, a ceremonial piece, or both, this tool likely meant something to the people who made and used it.
The site itself tells a story of people moving across harsh Ice Age landscapes, adapting to extreme shifts in climate. Stable isotope analysis suggests a varied diet that included large game and freshwater fish. These weren’t simple nomads—they were engineers, artists, and strategists.
Until now, the oldest European boomerangs dated to around 7,000 years ago. The wooden examples from Australia are even younger. This find pushes the timeline back by over 30,000 years and forces a rethink of who we were during that early expansion across Europe.
The boomerang may not have come back when thrown. But it survived, and now it’s returned in a different way—as evidence of human behavior in an ancient time.
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