Archaeologists Uncover a ‘Monumental’ Hunting Kit in Texas That May Be the Oldest Found in North America Yet The artifacts discovered in a cave—which include dart tips, a boomerang and a spear-throwing tool—were dated to as far back as 7,000 years ago Lillian Ali - Staff Contributor April 8, 2025 4:42 p.m. Archaeologists recovered an assortment of artifacts from the San Esteban Rockshelter in western Texas, including dart tips, portions of a spear and an animal hide. Robert Greeson, Center for Big Bend Studies Near present-day Marfa, Texas, a prehistoric hunter once took shelter in a cave. The person built a fire and went through their hunting tools, leaving behind the ones that had broken. Then, they left. Those tools stayed in that cave, largely undisturbed, for 6,500 years, until researchers recently dug them up. Archaeologists have pieced together this likely scene based on weapons, preserved human waste and the remains of a small fire discovered over the past several years in a West Texas cave. As they dug deeper and deeper, they uncovered more artifacts: a folded animal hide, wooden darts with stone tips, a boomerang, pieces of a spear-throwing tool and wooden shafts thought to be used for delivering poison. The tool kit may be the oldest intact weapon system found in North America, writes Louie Bond for Texas Parks and Wildlife magazine, which first reported the story. “We were just stunned, because I’ve never seen that stuff,” archaeologist Bryon Schroeder, director of the Center for Big Bend Studies at Sul Ross State University, tells the New York Times’ Livia Albeck-Ripka. “It makes the past way less abstract. … It’s like, ‘Wow, these people were people.’”The project was started by the Odyssey Archaeological Research program at the University of Kansas, which invited the Center for Big Bend Studies to collaborate. For the past six years, the team has been scouring the San Esteban Rockshelter for evidence of some of the earliest humans in North America. They made their first artifact discovery in 2020 and have uncovered more objects every year since, reports Live Science’s Tom Metcalfe. The oldest item found so far, a spear-thrower called an atlatl, was dated to almost 7,000 years old—in a 2023 paper, the researchers suggested it was theoldest one found on the continent. The hide, which belonged to an antelope-like animal called a pronghorn, still had intact hair of its original color, preserved over thousands of years. “We all just sat there and stared at it in wonder,” Schroeder tells Texas Parks and Wildlife. “Somebody folded that hide up and sat that right on top of this rock. And nobody touched it for 6,000 years.” The entrance to the cave where the weapons were found Robert Greeson, Center for Big Bend Studies James David Kilby, an expert in hunter-gatherer anthropology at Texas State University who was not involved in the work, tells the New York Times that the mix of stone tools with tools made from organic materials, like wood, “remind[s] us that stone tools are just one component of these much more complex tool assemblages.” Preserved wood tools are exceedingly rare, since they tend to decay quickly. Usually, only stone tools are left for archaeologists to find, so the intact organic material is remarkable. Tests on this wood can offer a snapshot of the past environment at the time. There is still work to be done on the artifacts, and the research team has yet to publish their findings in full. They are still trying to determine whether all the objects found belonged to the same kit, or if they originated from separate periods. Researchers are also working with Indigenous groups to gain approval to conduct tests on the human waste found near the kit, which can provide insight into the diet and DNA of early humans. As scientists piece together the age and purpose of the artifacts, they will learn even more details about the lives, practices and complexity of early hunter-gatherers. “If it really is a contemporaneous kit,” Schroeder tells Texas Parks and Wildlife, “it’s a pretty monumental finding.” Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.