Other types of humans were roaming around Europe long before Homo sapiens ever called it home. They improvised tools from whatever the landscape offered, and they did so way, way before scientists previously thought.
Two new studies suggest that early hominins in Europe were crafting bone and wooden tools hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously believed, pushing back the timeline of technological advancement on the continent.
One study, published in Science Advances, describes a roughly 500,000-year-old hammer made from elephant or mammoth bone. It was discovered at the Boxgrove site in southern England. The tool was likely used for knapping, which is striking stone to shape cutting tools.
It bears evidence of microscopic damage and embedded flint fragments that point to repeated, deliberate use.
Scientists Found 500,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools—The Oldest on Record
But another, probably more remarkable study, published in PNAS, documents 430,000-year-old wooden tools from a former lakeshore in southern Greece. This makes them the oldest known wooden tools ever found. Which is pretty remarkable considering that wood degrades much more quickly than stone.
The researchers dug up a digging stick and a carved twig, which sound like a whole lot of nothing but actually have significant archaeological value, as both bear clear signs of chopping and shaping. Homo sapiens didn’t make these tools. They were probably made by early Neanderthals or their predecessor, Homo heidelbergensis.
Modern humans didn’t emerge in Africa until more than 300,000 years ago and wouldn’t reach Europe for tens of thousands of years after that. Yet by then, other hominins had already lived across Europe for nearly a million years, making tools and, unconsciously, laying the foundations of human civilization.
Maybe the most incredible part of this discovery is that they were preserved long enough for the discoveries to be made in the first place. Wood and bone are fragile and don’t preserve well. If they did, archaeologists might have found evidence of these tools much earlier, and we would’ve already had a better sense of how inventive early humans really were.
Prehistoric Europeans were using their creativity and inventiveness to survive and thrive in their punishing homes, passing down their knowledge long before the species that would eventually become us took over and claimed credit.
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