Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story:Researchers analyzed 60,000-year-old arrowheads found in South Africa and discovered they had been tinged with poison. The native South African “poison bulb” plant is a well-known source of poison, indicating it may have been the source of what ancient humans used to poison the arrowheads. “It demonstrates that these ancient bowhunters possessed a knowledge system enabling them to identify, extract, and apply toxic plant exudates effectively,” Lombard wrote. Finding the specific alkaloids on five of the 10 quartz arrow tips studied “cannot be coincidental,” Lombard wrote. Lombard cited evidence for from 1,000 years ago and the previous oldest known use on an arrow from 7,000 years ago.