This is a scientific American 60 second science. I'm Christopher in Tagyatta.

The time 300,000 years ago, the scene, a herd of horses struggling in mud.

A short five meters away, a group of early Neanderthal

hunters throwing a volley of wooden spears towards the animals.

And then probably coming into an injured horse and then perhaps finishing it off with a thrusting

spear.

On Amika Milks, a Paleolithic archaeologist at University College London.

But there's something not quite right about that classic scene

she says. Specifically, the Neanderthal's spears may have been more sophisticated and

more lethal than we've given him credit for, which would alter that ancient tableau.

We believe that Neanderthals could have thrown them from farther away,

that that would have allowed them to approach animals that maybe weren't disadvantaged, and they wouldn't have necessarily needed to come right up close to the animal to kill it off with a thrust.

Some of these shots with a throwing spear could be lethal to an animal like that if they hit in the right way.

This revised assessment of Neanderthal weaponry began with the crafting of spruce timber

into replicas of an actual 300,000 year old spear.

The surface was finished with the same kinds of stone tools used to make the original.

Milks then recruited six male javelin throwers to chuck the replicas at a hay bale. At 5 meters they struck the target more than half the time.

At 10 to 15 meters, a quarter of the time. But from 20 meters, just 1 in six throws hit the hay.

I mean, it's still not amazing accuracy, I have to say.

I was hoping for better.

Though she points out that the javelin throwers aren't trained to hit targets,

something Neanderthals may have been more skilled at, and the experiment suggests

...