Rare finds were discovered during an excavation on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Two knives fashioned from tiger shark's teeth, believed to be from prehistoric times, were among the ones that got the most attention.
2 Knives From Shark Teeth
The rare artifacts were discovered by an international team of researchers while conducting excavations on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The 11th largest island in the globe is home to some of the earliest known cave paintings and has a rich archaeological history reaching back to prehistoric times.
The altered shark teeth have been discovered in archeological settings connected to the Toalean culture. It is estimated that the mysterious foraging community existed between 8,000 years ago and an unspecified time recently.
One of the objects was a whole tooth with two holes bored through the root that was discovered at the Leang Panninge cave site. The other, found at a cave known as Leang Bulu' Sipong 1, has one hole, albeit it's fractured and most likely had holes in it originally.
Similar in size, each shark tooth belonged to tiger sharks that were probably longer than 6 feet. The name "tiger shark" comes from the unique gray-striped pattern that can be seen on the flanks of these sharks, which may be found worldwide in tropical to temperate climates.
According to the marine conservation advocacy group Oceana, tiger sharks can reach lengths of up to 18 feet and weigh 2,000 pounds, making them the second-largest predatory shark in the world (after great whites) and the fourth-largest overall.
The current shark-tooth blades utilized by many civilizations around the Pacific region use the same attaching method. According to the study, the ancient shark tooth blades were probably used in ritual or combat.
Shark teeth are a part of the material culture of many societies worldwide. According to several study authors from Griffith University in Australia and Universitas Hasanuddin in Indonesia who worked on the study, people who live near coastlines (and actively fish for sharks) are likelier to use more teeth to make a wider variety of tools.
Anthropological observations of contemporary societies suggest that shark teeth were virtually always fashioned into weapons for warfare or ceremonial purposes, such as ritualized fighting, when they weren't used as jewelry.
Lost Toalean Culture
Over a century ago marked the start of the Toalean archeological narrative. The Swiss explorers Paul and Fritz Sarasin discovered several caverns in the southern Sulawesi mountains in 1902.
Their excavations turned up Maros points, tiny, expertly carved stone arrowheads. Were also discovered additional unusual bone-fashioned tools and stone items that were linked to the prehistoric "Toalien" people (now written Toalean), the original occupants of Sulawesi.
Although several Toalean cave sites have recently undergone more thorough scientific excavation, our knowledge of this society is still in its infancy. About 8,000 years ago are the first known Maros points and other artifacts from Toale.
The Toaleans were hunter-gatherers who gathered edible shellfish from creeks and estuaries and preyed mainly on wild, endemic warty pigs, according to discoveries from cave excavations. Only one area of southern Sulawesi has so far yielded any indication of the group's existence.
A few thousand years after the earliest Neolithic settlements on the island initially appeared, around the fifth century AD, Toalean artifacts vanished from the archeological record.
On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, in Makassar, archaeologists from the University of Hasanuddin discovered a woman's skeleton hidden in a limestone cave in 2015. The Leang Panninge, or "Bat Cave," person was 17 or 18 years old when she passed away some 7,200 years ago.
They dubbed the skeleton Bessé (pronounced bur-sek), a nickname given to newborn princesses among the Bugis people, who presently reside in southern Sulawesi. She was deemed the first evidence of the lost Toalean culture.
RELATED ARTICLE : 1,600-year-old Roman Dodecahedron Unearthed in Belgium: What Were Those Ancient Objects Used For?
Check out more news and information on Archaeology in Science Times.
