A pair of carved wooden objects from Greece is reshaping what scientists thought they knew about early human technology.
The newly identified tools date to about 430,000 years ago, making them the oldest known hand-held wooden tools ever discovered.
As ScienceDaily detailed, an international team led by researchers at the University of Reading and the University of Tübingen, along with the Senckenberg Nature Research Society, identified the finds at an archaeological site in the Peloponnese of southern Greece. Their findings were published in PNAS.
The two tools were made from different trees: one from alder and the other from either willow or poplar. The discovery pushes back the record for the use of this type of wooden tool by at least 40,000 years.
The site also contained stone tools alongside elephant and other animal remains, suggesting that early humans used the lakeside area to butcher prey during the Middle Pleistocene, roughly 774,000 to 129,000 years ago.
"The Middle Pleistocene was a critical phase in human evolution, during which more complex behaviors developed," said professor Katerina Harvati, who leads the long-term research program at the Marathousa 1 site.
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Wood rarely survives for hundreds of thousands of years, meaning a large part of early human life may have disappeared from the archaeological record. Stone tools usually dominate that record simply because stone endures.
The findings suggest early humans were working with plants in more sophisticated ways than researchers had previously demonstrated, deliberately shaping wood and using it for tasks beyond simple survival.
One of the artifacts appears to have been carefully carved from an alder branch or trunk and shows signs of wear; it may have been used for digging in soft lakeshore ground or for stripping bark. The second, smaller object also bore marks linked to carving and use.
Researchers found grooves on another piece of alder wood that they identified as marks from a large carnivore, perhaps a bear.
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The discovery came after researchers took a closer look at preserved wood recovered during excavations. Because Marathousa 1 had already yielded stone and bone artifacts showing a broad range of activity, the team decided the wooden fragments also deserved detailed study.
Using microscopic analysis, they were able to distinguish marks made by human chopping and carving from damage caused by animals or natural processes. That careful approach helped confirm that two of the wooden objects had been intentionally shaped and used by people.
Waterlogged environments, such as ancient lake shores, can preserve fragile organic materials that would otherwise have disappeared, offering a fuller picture of how humans lived.
"We have discovered the oldest wooden tools known to date as well as the first evidence of this kind from southeastern Europe," Harvati said.
Dr. Annemieke Milks said: "We found marks from chopping and carving on two objects — clear signs that early humans had shaped them."
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