Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography, Siberian Branch, Russian Academy of Sciences

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80,000-year-old stone points may be the world's oldest arrowheads

As of September 2026: Home institution of study co-author Andrey Krivoshapkin; led the Obi-Rakhmat fieldwork

Tiny triangular stone points found in a Central Asian cave appear to be 80,000-year-old arrowheads, the oldest known in the world. The artifacts from Uzbekistan's Obi-Rakhmat site predate comparable points from Ethiopia by roughly 6,000 years.

Updated Sep 7