Artist’s reconstruction of a Palaeolithic woman making a digging stick from an alder tree trunk
G. Prieto; K. Harvati
The recent discovery of the oldest known wooden tools in a Greek opencast mine sheds light on ancient human history. Dating back 430,000 years, these tools were crafted by an unidentified ancient human species, possibly the predecessors of Neanderthals.
Archaeologist Dirk Leder from the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage in Hannover, Germany, comments on the significance of this find, highlighting the scarcity of prehistoric wooden artefacts and the importance of each discovery in enhancing our understanding of early tool usage.
Katerina Harvati from the University of Tübingen in Germany emphasizes the potential long history of wooden tool usage by extinct human relatives. The difficulty in identifying and preserving wooden artefacts has limited previous knowledge in this area.
The excavation site, Marathousa 1, located in the Megalopolis basin in southern Greece, provided a wealth of information dating back nearly half a million years. The discovery of a straight-tusked elephant skeleton alongside various animal and plant remains, as well as over 2000 stone tools, offers insights into the ancient environment and possible human activities.
Through advanced dating methods, researchers determined the age of the site to be around 430,000 years, coinciding with a harsh glacial period in Pleistocene Europe. The wooden tools, particularly an 81-centimetre-long stick made from an alder tree trunk, exhibit deliberate shaping and suggest possible uses in digging or processing food.
Another enigmatic wooden tool, a small piece of willow or poplar, raises questions about its intended function, with speculations ranging from stone tool retouching to other unknown purposes.
Although no hominin remains were found at Marathousa 1, Harvati suggests the presence of a pre-Neanderthal or Homo heidelbergensis population in the region during that time. The site adds to the growing body of evidence on ancient wooden tool usage, with comparisons to similar finds in the UK and Germany.
Overall, the discovery of these ancient wooden tools provides valuable insights into the technological capabilities and daily lives of early human ancestors, shedding light on their resourcefulness and adaptability in challenging environments.
