{"id":822186,"date":"2026-05-26T01:16:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T01:16:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/822186\/"},"modified":"2026-05-26T01:16:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T01:16:18","slug":"oldest-wooden-tool-may-be-a-430000-year-old-stick-found-in-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/822186\/","title":{"rendered":"Oldest Wooden Tool May Be a 430,000-Year-Old “Stick” Found in Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Ancient<\/a>Artist\u2019s impression of a Stone Age hunter-gatherer manufacturing the oldest known wooden handheld tool. Credit: G. Prieto, K. Harvati.<\/p>\n

In the shadow of a coal mine in southern Greece, archaeologists discovered the oldest known handheld wooden tools ever found. Dating back 430,000 years, these artifacts push the timeline for this type of tool use back by a staggering 40,000 years.<\/p>\n

We often imagine our ancient ancestors as exclusively stone-tool-wielding hominins \u2014 hence, the \u201cStone Age.\u201d However, this narrative is heavily biased by what survives the ravages of time. Stone is virtually indestructible; wood is not.<\/p>\n

Yet, as this new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/a> shows, wood may have been just as crucial to our extinct relatives. \u201cIt might be the oldest type of tool that anybody used,\u201d Katerina Harvati at the University of T\u00fcbingen in Germany, told New Scientist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A Lakeshore Refuge in a Glacial World<\/p>\n

The tools were discovered at Marathousa 1, a site in the Megalopolis basin first identified in 2013. Here, an opencast lignite mine exposed layers of sediment holding secrets nearly a million years old. \u201cIt allows us to access time periods and sediments that would otherwise have been buried,\u201d says Harvati. <\/p>\n

Between 2013 and 2019, excavations revealed a fascinating scene. Researchers found the near-complete skeleton of a straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) bearing butchery marks. It lay alongside the remains of hippopotamuses, turtles, birds, and more than 2,000 stone tools. This diverse menagerie indicates the site was once a rich lakeshore environment. <\/p>\n

Life 430,000 years ago was harsh. Europe was gripped by an extremely cold glacial period. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the worst glacial episodes in Pleistocene Europe,\u201d says Harvati. But the Megalopolis basin likely acted as a microrefugium, a localized haven offering a milder climate and essential resources for survival. <\/p>\n

The Mystery of the Digging Stick<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>This wooden tool was likely used to dig through mud. Credit: Dimitris Michailidis \/ K. Harvati,<\/p>\n

Out of 144 preserved wood pieces, researchers identified two definitive tools. The most striking is an 81-centimeter-long stick crafted from an alder trunk. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe found marks from chopping and carving on both objects, clear signs that humans had shaped them,\u201d said Annemieke Milks, an archaeologist at the University of Reading and a lead author of the study. <\/p>\n

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The alder stick features a rounded end that likely served as a handle and a flattened end showing signs of fraying and splintering. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe tool has a morphology and size comparable to digging sticks,\u201d the research team wrote in their study. This suggests hominins may have used it to unearth underground tubers for food. Intriguingly, the stick was found nestled among the butchered elephant bones. Could it have been used to process the giant carcass? <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really know what they were doing with it,\u201d Harvati told the New York Times<\/a>. \u201cI\u2019ve never tried to cut up an elephant carcass, so I don\u2019t know,\u201d she adds. \u201cI assume it\u2019s not so easy, but I mean, I guess it\u2019s possible.\u201d <\/p>\n

The second artifact is a mystery. It is a tiny piece of willow or poplar, measuring just 5.7 centimeters long. \u201cThis is a completely new type of wooden tool,\u201d says Harvati. It has been completely debarked and shaped, with rounding and pitting at one end. It might have been a specialized tool used for retouching the edges of stone flakes, but its exact function remains an open question. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t really know what it was for,\u201d Harvati admits. <\/p>\n

\"Ancient<\/a>The 2.2-inches-long (5.7 cm) handheld wooden tool from around 430,000 years ago. Its function is unknown. Credit: N. Thompson, K. Harvati.<\/p>\n

No hominin fossils were found at Marathousa 1, leaving the identity of the toolmakers unknown. The 430,000-year date puts the site well before the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe, which occurred much later. <\/p>\n

\u201cA first hypothesis is that what we have here is a type of pre-Neanderthal, or Homo heidelbergensis,\u201d says Harvati. However, she cautions against jumping to conclusions, noting that Greece was a crossroads for many hominin groups. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt could have been Homo heidelbergensis, or possibly very early Neanderthals,\u201d Milks added. <\/p>\n

Regardless of the species, the findings showcase remarkable adaptability. These hominins survived a brutal ice age by utilizing everything their environment offered. They \u201chighlight the behavioral adaptability and flexibility of the Marathousa hominins,\u201d Harvati notes. <\/p>\n

Wood, Bone, and the Bias of Stone<\/p>\n

The Marathousa 1 discoveries join a growing body of evidence suggesting that early human technology was far richer than stone tools alone. \u201cOrganic artifacts, especially those derived from plants, are a lot more fragile and harder to find than those made from stone,\u201d Havarti said. <\/p>\n

A third wooden specimen from the site, a large alder trunk, bears deep grooves that researchers identified not as human tool marks, but as claw marks from a large carnivore, possibly a bear. \u201cAnd the fact that large carnivores left their mark near the butchered elephant alongside human activity indicates fierce competition between the two,\u201d Harvati says. <\/p>\n

Recent research from Boxgrove in England also revealed a 500,000-year-old hammer<\/a> made from an elephant bone. Silvia Bello, a paleoanthropologist at London\u2019s Natural History Museum, explains that \u201cThe hammer has been struck against stone, repeatedly. The small pieces of flint found embedded in the bone confirm that it was used for this specialized purpose,\u201d she told the New York Times. <\/p>\n

While the 430,000-year-old Marathousa tools are the oldest handheld wooden tools, they are not the oldest evidence of woodcraft. That title belongs to the Kalambo Falls site in Zambia, where 476,000-year-old interlocking logs were found<\/a>, likely forming part of a shelter or platform. <\/p>\n

But handheld tools like digging sticks or stone-retouchers require different cognitive processes than building structures. They show an intimate, portable engagement with the natural world. \u201cI think it really helps us understand how humans in the deep past were making use of so many different materials and resources in their surroundings,\u201d Milks said. <\/p>\n

Prehistoric wooden artifacts are \u201cvery scarce,\u201d says Dirk Leder at the Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage. \u201cEvery single find is welcome.\u201d <\/p>\n

As we continue to dig into waterlogged sites that preserve these perishable materials, we may find that the \u201cStone Age\u201d is a misnomer. Our ancestors were master craftspeople of the forest, just as much as the quarry.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared in February 2026.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Artist\u2019s impression of a Stone Age hunter-gatherer manufacturing the oldest known wooden handheld tool. Credit: G. Prieto, K.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":822187,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8],"tags":[63723,83980,159,101523,67,132,68],"class_list":["post-822186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-homo-heidelbergensis","tag-neanderthal","tag-science","tag-stone-age","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116638241076521355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=822186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/822186\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/822187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=822186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=822186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=822186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}