Archaeologists have examined a large sample of bone objects worked from 26 sites of Paleolithic caves and rocks in the Cantabrian region of Spain and South West of France.
Taxonomic identification of the 173 worked bone objects (A) and not in difficulty (b): (1) white, Tito Bustillo, sperm; (2) Projectile point with a massive base, isturitz, blue whale; (3) Projectile point, Brassempouy, Whale with fins; (4) Possible pre -recovery, las caldas, sperm; (5) Projectile point with a massive base, ermity, gray whale; (6) Unidentified object, Saint-Michel, sperm; (7-10) Non-reatvating fragments of the whale bone with fins, Santa Catalina. Image credit: McGrath and al., DOI: 10.1038 / S41467-025-59486-8.
“Whales, the largest animals on the earth, were an important source of food and materials such as oil and bones,” said the first author, Dr. Krista McGrath, archaeologist at the Autònoma University of Barcelona, ​​and his colleagues.
“For this reason, they would have played a key role in the survival of many coastal human groups.”
“However, tracing the origins of human-whale interactions is difficult, because coastal archaeological sites are particularly fragile and vulnerable to sea level elevation, which makes it difficult to preserve the evidence of human human marine mammals.”
In their research, the authors have analyzed 83 bone tools of the cave and rock sites around Bisque bay in Spain with 90 additional bones of the Santa Catalina cave, also located in Bisque province.
They used mass spectrometry and radiocarbon dating to identify the species and age of the artifacts.
The first two dates came from the Cantabrians sites of Rascaño and El Juyo: 20,200-19 600 and 19,600-19,000 years, respectively.
“Our study reveals that the bones came from at least five species of large whales, the oldest whose date has around 19,000 to 20,000 years ago,” said Dr. Jean-Marc Pétillon, archaeologist at Toulouse Jean Jaurès and CNRS.
“These represent some of the first known evidence of humans using whale remains as tools.”
“Zooms is a powerful technique for studying the diversity of previous maritime mammals, especially when diagnostic morphometric elements are absent from bone remains and objects, which is often the case for bone artefacts,” said Dr. McGrath.
“We have managed to identify species such as sperm, fins, blue whales, all still present in the Gulf of Bisque today, as well as gray whales, a species now mainly limited to the North Pacific and Arctic Oceans.”
“In addition, the chemical data extracted from the bones suggest that the food habits of these ancient whales differ slightly from those of their modern counterparts, stressing potential changes in behavior or marine environment.”
“Overall, this discovery not only improves our understanding of the early human use of whale remains, but also highlights the role that whales played in past ecosystems.”
The team paper appears today in the newspaper Nature communications.
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K. MCGRATH and al. 2025. The bone tools of late Paleolithic whale reveal human ecology and whales in the Gulf of Gascogne. Common nat 16, 4646; DOI: 10.1038 / S41467-025-59486-8
