The bone spearheads are more than nine thousand years old. They were made by ancient people who lived in the territory of the modern Sverdlovsk Region in the Mesolithic era (13,000 – 8,000 B.C.). The spearheads were found in the peat bog of Shigir, seventy kilometers from Yekaterinburg, at the end of the 19th century.
Spearheads
Creation period
9,650 – 9,520 years ago
Dimensions
11,5x3,5x2 cm
11.5x3.5x2 cm
11.5x3.5x2 cm
Technique
Scraping, planing, polishing
Exhibition
2
Open in app#5
Unknown Author
Spearheads
#6
#7
In the early 20th century, Scientist Vladimir Tolmachyov developed a typology of cogged pikes and bone spearheads. Later, archaeologists found that they were all made with stone tools.
#9
Boar spear
#8
The boar spear was the main weapon in the Mesolithic era. With this heavy pike with a long pole that served as a handle people hunted large animals. One of the spearheads, of which only a fragment of the tip remained, was dated by researches from the Oxford Radiocarbon Laboratory back to 8,000 B.C.
#3
The drawing by Mikhail Zhilin (left) shows a harpoon head. The image on the right is a photo of the head tip made by Evgeny Tamplon.
Ancient people made this massive weapon of a long tubular bone cut lengthwise in halves. The back of the spearhead is broken off with only the tip in the cone shape preserved. It is slightly canted. The tip of the spearhead has the traces of polishing. It was polished aslant at the angle of about 45 degrees. Archaeologists have discovered that this method was used by ancient people of the Mesolithic era throughout Eastern Europe and Siberia to adjust spearheads. This was done to protect the weapon from damage and prevent its destruction if the spearhead began to chip. The tip of the spearhead was polished with a piece of leather.
#11
The edge and the top of the spearhead was made by the ancient man rounded and a little chipped. The researchers could see thin notches under the microscope that have the shape of a fan and run from the spearhead along the weapon’s axis. These scratches are traces of repeated piercing at different angles of a soft muddy material, as for example an animal’s body or soft soil when missing the target.
#12
The Middle Stone (the Mesolithic) Age followed the Ice Age, which ended 12 thousand years ago. The environment and climate changed, that is why ancient people had to invent new weapons, find other ways to hunt and protect themselves against enemies. The first stone spearheads appeared in this era in the forest area of Eastern Europe. The oldest items for hunting are 11.5 thousand years old.
#13
Items from the Shigir collection are on display at museums of Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Helsinki and Paris. The Sverdlovsk Regional Museum of Local Lore has about three thousand artifacts.
#14
Sverdlovsk Regional Ethnography Museum
read morehide
00:00
00:00
1x
Spearheads
Creation period
9,650 – 9,520 years ago
Dimensions
11,5x3,5x2 cm
11.5x3.5x2 cm
11.5x3.5x2 cm
Technique
Scraping, planing, polishing
Exhibition
2
Point your smartphone camera to open in the appOpen in app
Share
