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World's oldest boomerang - found in Poland

DormouseAtRest_25

When I was a young person; I enjoyed learning how to successfully use an Australian boomerang (...very early morning on the local recreation ground ...before other people were around to, erm!, "experience" any of my earliest attempts / mishaps!).

I was intrigued by this BBC article describing:

- a 40,000 year old mammoth ivory boomerang (the size of a baseball bat)

- found, 1985, in a cave within Poland

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cren818q5x1o

For the referenced journals PLOS One article (used by authors who want to make their research available and discoverable for all):

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0324911

Talamo S, Casaccia N, Richards MP, Wacker L, Tassoni L, et al. (2025) Boomerang and bones: Refining the chronology of the Early Upper Paleolithic at Obłazowa Cave, Poland. PLOS ONE 20(6): e0324911. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0324911

Anyone else ever had any experience of using a boomerang?

Parents

  • Found one at the charity shop I volunteer at. It’s made in Australia and is decorated with aboriginal paintings.

    I hang it up on my bedroom wall never actually tried throwing it before cause I live in a built up area with no garden. Might take it to the park one morning to practise.

  • in reply to GreyCuddlyWolf

    Be aware you need a lot of space. It may go up to 50m, so you want something like a football field.

    Some are not shaped properly, so they don't fly properly or return. They are intended to be souvenirs or ornaments and just put on a shelf.

    To throw it, you tilt it at about 45 degrees and throw it like a stick, it should go around in a sort of circle, but starts to change at the end. If you throw it too gently it won't fly very well and just hit the ground. Spinning faster may make it fly a tighter loop.

    You can make a small one from paper or card I seem to remember which can sort of be used indoors on on a garden and to see how they fly.

Reply
  • in reply to GreyCuddlyWolf

    Be aware you need a lot of space. It may go up to 50m, so you want something like a football field.

    Some are not shaped properly, so they don't fly properly or return. They are intended to be souvenirs or ornaments and just put on a shelf.

    To throw it, you tilt it at about 45 degrees and throw it like a stick, it should go around in a sort of circle, but starts to change at the end. If you throw it too gently it won't fly very well and just hit the ground. Spinning faster may make it fly a tighter loop.

    You can make a small one from paper or card I seem to remember which can sort of be used indoors on on a garden and to see how they fly.

Children