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BY JONATHAN KETZ

Scientists have a new bone to pick with---an old bone.

The bone---is from a mastodon -- an animal that roamed the earth more than 13 thousand years ago.

And this particular piece of skeleton was discovered in the 1970’s. But decades later-- it’s making scientists rethink human history.

LiveScience has background on the discovery.

“A new look at a very old mastodon skeleton has turned up evidence of the first known hunting weapon in North America, a tool made of bone that predates previously known hunting technology by 800 years.”

See that part sticking out of the top of the bone? Scientists say that’s a weapon. A weapon that predates the conventional start of human settlement in the Americas by nearly 1,000 years. Here’s the BBC.

“The rib...has been dated precisely to 13,800 years ago. This places it before the so-called Clovis hunters, who many academics had argued were the North American continent's original inhabitants.”

The authors of the study, published in Science, say this shows humans were in North America much earlier than previously thought. They also say...

“The find adds to the wave of recent compelling evidence demonstrating an earlier, pre-Clovis settling of the Americas.”

New CT scans show the weapon was sharpened to a point. That point apparently broke off as it went into the mammoth’s body. The Oregonian reports the spear demonstrates advanced hunting techniques.

“The spear point was probably about one foot in length before it broke off in the Mastodon's rib. Researchers figure it had to penetrate more than ten inches of muscle and tissue before piercing the rib.”

Researchers also say hunters may have used a spear thrower to get through all that hide-- aiming at the heart or lungs to bring the four-plus ton animal down. 

Transcript by Newsy.