Clacton Spear Point, the tip of a wooden spear discovered in Clacton-on-Sea, England, in 1911. It is 400,000 years old and the oldest known worked wooden implement.
Clacton Spear Point, the tip of a wooden spear discovered in Clacton-on-Sea, England, in 1911. It is 400,000 years old and the oldest known worked wooden implement.
7 comments
Manufactured well before modern humans.
It is made of yew wood, shaped into a point, and when found was 387 mm long, 39 mm diameter and straight, but drying out during the first decades of storage shrank it to 367 mm by 37 mm, and warped it slightly into a curve.
Treatment by wax impregnation in 1952 apparently stabilized it. At some time before this, the last 32 mm of the tip had broken off and had been re-attached by conservators. This again came off in 2013 and was re-attached,
It is on display at the Natural History Museum, London where its age is stated as 420,000 years.
Tests to reproduce it suggested that it had been formed by scraping with a curved flint tool of the type found on the same site.
I can’t believe it hasn’t rotten to compost in 4000years? It must have been in the dryest environment with no woodworm or woodlouse and many other bugs
Bri’ish superiority
Anything is a dildo if you’re brave enough
British industrial design at its peak.
400000 Years? I doubt it
[this](https://nhm.openrepository.com/bitstream/handle/10141/622351/Clacton%20Spear%202.pdf)