Early Humans
Jan. 28th, 2026 02:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmith430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Are the Oldest Ever Found
The finding, along with the discovery of a 500,000-year-old hammer made of bone, indicates that our human ancestors were making tools even earlier than archaeologists thought.
Well, it's exciting to find wooden tools that old, because wood doesn't preserve very well over deep time. Bone is pretty cool too.
However, the oldest tools currently known date back about 3.3 million years. The tools from Lomekwi likely came from Australopithecus. Interestingly, they include flakes knapped from a core, which is a more sophisticated process -- you can get a lot more flake tools this way -- compared to knapping small bits off to shape the core into a tool. So that is probably nowhere near the first tools, just the earliest we've found so far.
Also, wooden tools predate stone tools. Plenty of animals use wooden tools to poke or pry at things or to build structures. Once you're up on your hind legs, a digging stick is the most obvious, easy, and useful tool to make and keep with you, if you live in an area that offers long sturdy sticks. Just strip the leaves and side twigs off a branch and you have something you can poke and pry with. Remove the bark and it will last longer. Sharpen one end, such as by rubbing it against a rock, and it works better to dig up roots. Almost inevitably, right after someone invents the purposely broken rock, someone grabs the sharp piece to whittle the end of her digging stick faster than by rubbing it. If you have fire, you can use that to harden and preserve the end of your digging stick.
The next thing you want, and you really want it bad, is something to hold things so you can keep your hands free. A thong, a strap, a pouch, a basket, a hollow horn -- anything that carries stuff so you don't have to is a huge benefit. The first version is very often putting chunks of meat in the animal's own hide, then picking up the hide to carry or drag the whole pile, but this is typically a temporary use as tanning only happens later. Sadly, these tend to be things that don't preserve well. One exception is a hollow horn, but even there, the most telling part is located where damage is most likely to obscure it: a hole or holes punched in the rim so it can be strung on a thong and worn. Fitted caps are much harder to make and came along much later. Some skulls also make excellent bowls or cups, and they can last long enough to be useful for archaeology.
The finding, along with the discovery of a 500,000-year-old hammer made of bone, indicates that our human ancestors were making tools even earlier than archaeologists thought.
Well, it's exciting to find wooden tools that old, because wood doesn't preserve very well over deep time. Bone is pretty cool too.
However, the oldest tools currently known date back about 3.3 million years. The tools from Lomekwi likely came from Australopithecus. Interestingly, they include flakes knapped from a core, which is a more sophisticated process -- you can get a lot more flake tools this way -- compared to knapping small bits off to shape the core into a tool. So that is probably nowhere near the first tools, just the earliest we've found so far.
Also, wooden tools predate stone tools. Plenty of animals use wooden tools to poke or pry at things or to build structures. Once you're up on your hind legs, a digging stick is the most obvious, easy, and useful tool to make and keep with you, if you live in an area that offers long sturdy sticks. Just strip the leaves and side twigs off a branch and you have something you can poke and pry with. Remove the bark and it will last longer. Sharpen one end, such as by rubbing it against a rock, and it works better to dig up roots. Almost inevitably, right after someone invents the purposely broken rock, someone grabs the sharp piece to whittle the end of her digging stick faster than by rubbing it. If you have fire, you can use that to harden and preserve the end of your digging stick.
The next thing you want, and you really want it bad, is something to hold things so you can keep your hands free. A thong, a strap, a pouch, a basket, a hollow horn -- anything that carries stuff so you don't have to is a huge benefit. The first version is very often putting chunks of meat in the animal's own hide, then picking up the hide to carry or drag the whole pile, but this is typically a temporary use as tanning only happens later. Sadly, these tend to be things that don't preserve well. One exception is a hollow horn, but even there, the most telling part is located where damage is most likely to obscure it: a hole or holes punched in the rim so it can be strung on a thong and worn. Fitted caps are much harder to make and came along much later. Some skulls also make excellent bowls or cups, and they can last long enough to be useful for archaeology.
(no subject)
Date: 2026-01-29 12:27 am (UTC)Yes ...
Date: 2026-01-29 02:08 am (UTC)Re: Yes ...
Date: 2026-01-29 02:51 am (UTC)So compare all the different types of tools commonly used by those species, and see which of them can possibly be related.
Off the top of my head, chimps, bonobos, and humans use sticks as extensions of hands (spears, digging, manipulating other objects).
At least humans and gorillas use beds/nests, its also possible that gorilla nests and human weaving may be related.
Humans and orangutans both use water to clean things, but orangutans may have invented that separately and more recently.
Re: Yes ...
Date: 2026-01-29 03:48 am (UTC)