Timeline: Weapons technology
Explore the history of war and weapons with our timeline of weapons technology.
Please note, many of the technologies are difficult to attribute, and historical dates are often approximate.
400,000 BC
The earliest evidence of humans using spears, in a part of Germany now near Schöningen (Nature, DOI: 10.1038/385807a0).However, one population of modern chimpanzees in Senegal uses spears to hunt bushbabies, suggesting the technology may have been used by our most primitive ancestors.