430,000-Year-Old Wooden Hand Tools Discovered

Scientists have uncovered the oldest known wooden hand tools used in human history for the first time. These traditional tools, found along the shore of an ancient lake in Greece, are estimated by researchers to be around 430,000 years old. An international team of scientists from the University of Reading and the University of Tübingen in Germany discovered these artifacts at the archaeological site known as ‘Marathousa 1’ in Greece.

According to a report published in the scientific journal PNAS, one of these tools was made from alder wood, while another was crafted from willow or poplar wood. This discovery pushes back the known history of wooden tool use by at least 40,000 years. Alongside the wooden hand tools, the site also yielded stone tools and ancient elephant remains, indicating that early humans hunted animals near the lake and used these tools to butcher meat.

Although wood typically preserves less well than stone over long periods, the unique environmental conditions at the site allowed these wooden tools to survive. Scientists believe these wooden implements were used for digging into soil or extracting roots from trees. Previous finds of ancient wooden weapons and tools have been made in the UK, Germany, Zambia, and China, but all those artifacts are younger than the tools found in Greece.