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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

  • Alas, I have never thrown a boomerang, despite having had a yearning for such an item in my youth.

    I remember rumours about boomerangs were rife at school, with the girls having differing theories of the correct throwing technique; there were even suggestions that films used trick filmography to make a single throw look like the boomerang was curving back to the thrower. 

    The  journal article was fascinating. It is marvellous that museum conservation and accurate dating of ancient remains have developed to such an extent that a re-evaluation of the tusk can give us new information, not just of a relatively accurate date of the boomerang, but also of the life and habits of ancient Homo sapiens. I was particularly struck by the precision of the carving and the symmetry achieved, also that it provides further evidence of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals co-existing 40,000 years ago.

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  • Alas, I have never thrown a boomerang, despite having had a yearning for such an item in my youth.

    I remember rumours about boomerangs were rife at school, with the girls having differing theories of the correct throwing technique; there were even suggestions that films used trick filmography to make a single throw look like the boomerang was curving back to the thrower. 

    The  journal article was fascinating. It is marvellous that museum conservation and accurate dating of ancient remains have developed to such an extent that a re-evaluation of the tusk can give us new information, not just of a relatively accurate date of the boomerang, but also of the life and habits of ancient Homo sapiens. I was particularly struck by the precision of the carving and the symmetry achieved, also that it provides further evidence of Homo Sapiens and Neanderthals co-existing 40,000 years ago.

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