Researchers have uncovered the oldest known hand-held wooden tools ever discovered, offering new insight into the skills and behavior of early humans nearly half a million years ago.
An international team led by scientists from the University of Reading, the University of Tübingen, and the Senckenberg Nature Research Society identified the ancient artifacts at the Marathousa 1 archaeological site in central Greece's Peloponnese region. The findings date back around 430,000 years.
The study, published in the journal PNAS, describes two carefully worked wooden objects that were shaped and used by humans. One was made from alder wood, while the other came from either willow or poplar. Researchers say the discovery pushes back evidence for this type of wooden tool use by at least 40,000 years.
The site also contained stone tools along with the remains of elephants and other animals, suggesting the area was once used for butchering prey near the edge of an ancient lake. Early humans occupied the site during the Middle Pleistocene, a period spanning roughly 774,000 to 129,000 years ago.
"The Middle Pleistocene was a critical phase in human evolution, during which more complex behaviors developed. The earliest reliable evidence of the targeted technological use of plants also dates from this period," says Professor Katerina Harvati, a paleoanthropologist and expert in human evolution, who leads the long-term research program at Marathousa 1.
