Observatoire des droits humains (anglais seulement)

Stone age hunters in northern Europe may have used poison arrows to hunt big prey

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par Sally Christine Reynolds, Associate Professor in Hominin Palaeoecology, Bournemouth University

Autumn walks in Britain are glorious, as the foliage changes colour and cool crisp air begins to bite. However, some of these European trees hide a much darker secret. For example, the yew tree’s lovely red arils – the cup-shaped coverings around the seeds – carry toxins that may have been used to poison arrow tips in the past.

A new Danish study has shown that the “smoking gun” is not the poison itself, but the size of the small arrowheads used to deliver the toxin into the

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