I’m sure everyone is familiar with what claims to be the world’s oldest profession, so I won’t mention it. My question is what could be the second oldest?

I would vote for the forces of arms — militias, paramilitary, military, whatever label works. I was reminded of this by a recent article, “What’s the Oldest Weapon in the World?” by Isabel Gil on the Live Science website (https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/whats-the-oldest-weapon-in-the-world).

Of course, the first question is what is a weapon? A consulted expert, Ben Fitzhugh, a professor of anthropology at the University of Washington in Seattle, generally considers any objects used to impart violence on other living beings to be weapon-worthy. This would include hunting, but let’s run with this definition anyway.

The general consensus among archaeologists is three finds are viable contenders for the oldest evidence of weaponry: the Clacton spear, the Schöningen spears and throwing sticks, and the Kathu Pan 1 spear points.

Excavated in 1911 from Clacton-on-Sea in Essex, England, the Clacton spear is a 15-inch-long spear point that appears broken off from a longer shaft. Estimated to be over 400,000 years old, it’s made from yew wood and apparently has been worked with a tool to a sharp point. Today it’s on display in London’s Natural History Museum as the world’s oldest preserved wooden spear fragment.

The next candidate comes from a site in Schöningen, Germany, where archaeologists have recovered between 20 and 25 wooden weapons, including complete and fragmented spears and throwing sticks. Made mostly from spruce and pine wood, they’re considered the oldest completely preserved wooden weapons in the world with an age of between 200,000 and 300,000 years old.

Third, the Kathu Pan archaeological site in South Africa has yielded hafted spear tips: stone points attached to some form of handle or shaft. They have signs of wear on the edges, and the shape of their bases is consistent with hafted spears, suggesting they were weapons.  These artifacts became more common in the archaeological record between 200,000 and 300,000 years ago across Africa and Eurasia, but the Kathu Pan find has been dated to 500,000 years.  However, since no wooden shafts were also found, these could’ve simply been stone tools.

Are these the oldest? Probably not. Since early hominins worked with perishable materials like wood, sinew, and fiber, any non-stone weapons are probably long gone.

Should they be considered weapons of conflict, and not merely hunting tools? That we’ll never know for sure. If nothing else, these early artifacts still provide insight into how our ancestors combined materials, used their imaginations, shared knowledge and cooperated in groups, even if they may not have been weapons against fellow primates. So trying to find them is still worthwhile.