US EditionScientists recover the oldest wooden tools from a site in Greece
Two wooden tools, including an 81 cm digging stick, were found at Marathousa 1, pushing back known wooden tool use by 40,000 years, researchers report in PNAS.
- On January 26, researchers reported two wooden handheld tools recovered from a lake shore in Greece's Megalopolis basin and published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- Because the site was waterlogged and buried about 30 meters deep, fragile wood survived while earlier stone tools and cut elephant bones were found at the Megalopolis basin, researchers report.
- Researchers say the larger stick was recovered in four pieces, worked to remove branches, and shows use-wear analysis indicating digging, while the smaller willow piece was clearly shaped and may have finished stone or bone work.
- Scientists say the finds offer a rare glimpse into wooden technologies missing from the archaeological record, and Milks called the recovery `so lucky, incredibly lucky` while archaeologists say the site probably holds more important artifacts.
- Because no human remains were found at the site, the tools' owners could have been Neanderthals, early human ancestors, or others; comparable finds include shaped logs at Kalambo Falls, Zambia, about 480,000 years ago and early Neandertal wooden tools from Italy and Germany.
56 Articles
56 Articles
About 430,000 years old are the poles and wooden objects that left people in the Middle Pleistocene on a busy lakeside on the Peloponnese
430,000-year-old wooden tool found in Greece
A stick found in southern Greece appears to be the oldest-known wooden tool. The 81-centimeter (31-inch) alder-tree staff is 430,000 years old, and may have been used for digging or for food preparation. Wooden tools rarely survive so long; the same archeological site contained 2,000 stone tools, along with elephant bones and other animal remains, but just two wooden implements. But it is likely that wooden tools were “the oldest type of tool th…
Scientists unearth the world's oldest wooden tools dating back 430,000 years
Two artifacts found at a lake shore in Greece are the oldest wooden tools to be uncovered so far and date back 430,000 years. One is a spindly stick about 2 1/2 feet (80 centimeters) long that could have been used for digging in the mud. The other is a smaller, more mysterious handheld chunk of willow or poplar wood that may have been used to shape stone tools, according to research published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Aca…
The Bright Side: Researchers glimpse early signs of human technology with oldest wooden tools
The world's oldest wooden tools – likely dating back 430,000 years and possibly used by Neanderthals or early human ancestors – have been uncovered in Greece's Megalopolis basin. Researchers say the spindly stick used for digging and a handheld chunk of wood, possibly used to shape stones, give a rare glimpse of early human technology.
More than 100,000 years before modern people existed, this wood was carved: in Southern Europe, researchers have found possibly the oldest wooden hand tools in the world. The poles served a special purpose.
An international research team has discovered the oldest wood tools of mankind in Greece. The approximately 430,000-year-old finds are an archaeological sensation.
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