Sibudu Cave is an extremely important Middle Stone Age archaeological site located in South Africa. Among the collection from the Howiesons Poort levels (ca 61,000 years ago) is what researchers are interpreting as a bone arrow point--that is, a bone tool fitted to an arrow and shot from a bow. No bow fragments have been discovered at Sibudu or any other MSA site, but ethnographic comparisons of the bone tool, and a similar tool recovered from the MSA Peers Cave, are comparable to ethnographic bone arrow points collected from Bushman (Khoisan) groups in the early 20th century. If this interpretation is correct, this sets the invention of the bow and arrow tens of thousands of years earlier than was suspected in the past.
Notice the dark appearance of the surface of the bone point in the image, most likely produced by heat, and black manganese dioxide coating much of the piece.
Source
Backwell, Lucinda, Francesco d'Errico, and Lyn Wadley 2008 Middle Stone Age bone tools from the Howiesons Poort layers, Sibudu Cave, South Africa. Journal of Archaeological Science 35(6):1566-1580.
