Scientists announced the discovery of the oldest known wooden hand tools, dating back around 430,000 years. These objects, found at an archaeological site near an ancient lake in Greece, demonstrate that early humans exhibited much greater skill and ingenuity than previously thought.
The discovery was made at the Marathousa 1 site, located in the Peloponnese region of central Greece. An international team led by researchers from the University of Reading, the University of Tübingen, and the Senckenberg Research Society identified two carefully crafted wooden pieces.
One of the tools was made from alder wood, while the other came from willow or poplar. The researchers indicate that this finding pushes back the evidence of this type of technological use of wood by at least 40,000 years.
Signs of Use and Manufacture
The site also yielded stone tools and remains of elephants and other animals, suggesting that the area served for processing prey near the shore of an ancient lake. Humans occupied this area during the Middle Pleistocene, a key period in human evolution.
"The Middle Pleistocene was a critical phase in human evolution, where more complex behaviors developed," noted Professor Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist leading the research program at Marathousa 1. This stage also marks the first reliable evidence of directed technological use of plants.
The researchers carefully examined preserved wood remains during the excavations. Unlike stones, wood requires special conditions to be preserved for hundreds of thousands of years. Under the microscope, they detected cutting and carving marks on two objects, clear signs of human intervention.
