Discoveries

August 18, 2023

Made in Space

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The Bern Historical Museum in Switzerland is holding a 3,000-year-old arrowhead that was first discovered in the late 19th century.

While it looks like an ordinary artifact, a new analysis showed that it was crafted from a meteorite that crashed on Earth 3,500 years ago, Live Science reported.

Researchers wrote in their paper that the arrowhead was found in the Bronze Age dwelling of Mörigen, Switzerland. Upon closer examination, they found that it contained aluminum-26 isotopes – these don’t occur naturally on Earth – as well as traces of iron and nickel alloy consistent with meteorites.

Their findings also showed grind marks left over from when the meteorite was shaped into a weapon.

But what’s more interesting, say researchers, is that the meteorite was not crafted near the Mörigen dwelling.

The research team first suspected that the materials originated from the 170,000-year-old Twannberg meteorite site, less than five miles from the dwelling. However, they found that the artifact’s element concentrations weren’t a match.

Instead, these elements metals likely originated from the Kaalijarv meteorite site in Estonia, located more than 1,400 miles away.

The authors suspect that the extraterrestrial object was traded among Bronze Age societies, adding that long-distance trade networks were well-established during that period.

“These early people likely knew that when the impact happened there in (1500 BCE), the material was precious and had value to it,” said lead author Beda Hofmann.

This story originally appeared in the August 18, 2023 newsletter, Promises, Betrayed.