Upper image shows shaping marks on the tapered side and surface of Part 2 as seen on excavation (Fig. 4). Lower image shows loss of definition during storage. The arrows in the Lower image correspond with the area to the left of centre on the Upper image.
Yet more embarrassment for creationists as archaeologists announce the discovery of the remains of the world's oldest known wooden structure to date.
It was discovered in Africa, and has been dated to at least 476,000 years old, i.e., about 466,000 years longer that Earth has existed, according to creationist superstition.
This age places the structure in a time before anatomically-modern hominins had evolved, so showing that at least one archaic species of hominin had mastered the skill of shaping wood and making structures out of it, using nothing but stone and bone tools. Some of the timbers show evidence of jointing.
The discovery was made by a team led by Professor Larry Barham, from the University of Liverpool's Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, as part of the University of Liverpool's 'Deep Roots of Humanity' research project.
The news was announced in an open access paper in the journal Nature and in a University of Liverpool press release:
Archaeologists discover world's oldest wooden structureMore detail and images of the discovery are given in the open access paper in Nature:
Half a million years ago, earlier than was previously thought possible, humans were building structures made of wood, according to new research by a team from the University of Liverpool and Aberystwyth University.
The research, published in the journal Nature, reports on the excavation of well-preserved wood at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls, Zambia, dating back at least 476,000 years and predating the evolution of our own species, Homo sapiens.
Expert analysis of stone tool cut-marks on the wood show that these early humans shaped and joined two large logs to make a structure, probably the foundation of a platform or part of a dwelling.
This is the earliest evidence from anywhere in the world of the deliberate crafting of logs to fit together. Until now, evidence for the human use of wood was limited to its use for making fire, digging sticks and spears.
Wood is rarely found in such ancient sites as it usually rots and disappears, but at Kalambo Falls permanently high water levels preserved the wood.
This discovery challenges the prevailing view that Stone Age humans were nomadic. At Kalambo Falls these humans not only had a perennial source of water, but the forest around them provided enough food to enable them to settle and make structures.
Professor Larry Barham, from the University of Liverpool's Department of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, who leads the 'Deep Roots of Humanity' research project said:The specialist dating of the finds was undertaken by experts at Aberystwyth University.This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors. Forget the label 'Stone Age,' look at what these people were doing: they made something new, and large, from wood. They used their intelligence, imagination, and skills to create something they'd never seen before, something that had never previously existed.
They transformed their surroundings to make life easier, even if it was only by making a platform to sit on by the river to do their daily chores. These folks were more like us than we thought.
They used new luminescence dating techniques, which reveal the last time minerals in the sand surrounding the finds were exposed to sunlight, to determine their age.
Professor Geoff Duller from Aberystwyth University said:The site of Kalambo Falls on the Kalambo River lies above a 235 metres (772 foot) waterfall on the border of Zambia with the Rukwa Region of Tanzania at the edge of Lake Tanganyika. The area is on a 'tentative' list from UNESCO for becoming a World Heritage site because of its archaeological significance.At this great age, putting a date on finds is very challenging and we used luminescence dating to do this. These new dating methods have far reaching implications – allowing us to date much further back in time, to piece together sites that give us a glimpse into human evolution. The site at Kalambo Falls had been excavated back in the 1960s when similar pieces of wood were recovered, but they were unable to date them, so the true significance of the site was unclear until now.
Professor Duller added:The wooden structureOur research proves that this site is much older than previously thought, so its archaeological significance is now even greater. It adds more weight to the argument that it should be a United Nations World Heritage Site.
This research forms part of the pioneering ‘Deep Roots of Humanity’ project, an investigation into how human technology developed in the Stone Age. The project is funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council and involved teams from Zambia’s National Heritage Conservation Commission, Livingstone Museum, Moto Moto Museum and the National Museum, Lusaka. Professor Barham added:Kalambo Falls, ZambiaYou can read the research paper in full here.Kalambo Falls is an extraordinary site and a major heritage asset for Zambia. The Deep Roots team is looking forward to more exciting discoveries emerging from its waterlogged sands.
Abstract
Wood artefacts rarely survive from the Early Stone Age since they require exceptional conditions for preservation; consequently, we have limited information about when and how hominins used this basic raw material1. We report here on the earliest evidence for structural use of wood in the archaeological record. Waterlogged deposits at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls, Zambia, dated by luminescence to at least 476 ± 23 kyr ago (ka), preserved two interlocking logs joined transversely by an intentionally cut notch. This construction has no known parallels in the African or Eurasian Palaeolithic. The earliest known wood artefact is a fragment of polished plank from the Acheulean site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel, more than 780 ka (refs. 2,3). Wooden tools for foraging and hunting appear 400 ka in Europe4,5,6,7,8, China9 and possibly Africa10. At Kalambo we also recovered four wood tools from 390 ka to 324 ka, including a wedge, digging stick, cut log and notched branch. The finds show an unexpected early diversity of forms and the capacity to shape tree trunks into large combined structures. These new data not only extend the age range of woodworking in Africa but expand our understanding of the technical cognition of early hominins11, forcing re-examination of the use of trees in the history of technology12,13.Fig. 1: Location of Kalambo Falls archaeological site and excavated areas.
a, Site location in south-central Africa. b, Course of the Kalambo River (in outline) from around 1956 to 2006 in relation to previous excavations at sites A, B, C, D and C North. Site BLB (2019) and excavation units BLB1, BLB2, BLB3, BLB4 and BLB5 are located along the current main channel (blue). c, Cross-section of the 2019 excavation units showing the location of 16 luminescence dating samples (KF01–KF17, dark blue circles, uncertainties (±) shown at 1 − σ) by unit. Unit BLB1 is a geological section of the full cliff exposure from ground surface to below water level. The three colour bands indicate clusters of pIR IRSL ages grouped by mean ages and standard error of the mean. The earliest wood objects (BLB5, BLB3) are in the lower green band with a mean age of 476 ± 23 kyr. The blue band has a mean age of 390 ± 25 kyr and incorporates the wood object in BLB2. The overlying yellow band has a mean age of 324 ± 15 kyr and incorporates wood objects in BLB4. Red diamonds indicate modified wood objects. Inset map data in a: Google Maps, Google 2021, INEGI; the map of Kalambo Falls was drawn using Arc-GIS Open Street Map. Map data in b: Google Imagery 2021 CNES/Airbus, Maxar Technologies; the 1960s river course, with site locations, was redrawn from figure 7.2 of ref. 17 with permission from Cambridge Univ. Press.
Fig. 2: Modified wood tools from site BLB, Kalambo Falls, 2019.
a, BLB5 structural element (object 1033). b, BLB3 ‘wedge’ (object 660). c, BLB2 ‘digging stick’ (object 219). d, BLB4 cut log. e, BLB4, tapered piece with single chop-mark. Scale bars, 10 cm.Fig. 3: Structural unit formed by two overlapping logs in BLB5.
The underlying log passes through a central notch cut into the upper log (object 1033) and extends into the section. Plan view of the unit (left) and during excavation (right). The numbers refer to the distance in centimetres.
Fig. 4: Annotated images of the BLB5 upper log (object 1033) showing areas of intentional modification.
From left to right, the location of the central notch in profile, shaping marks in and on the margins of the notch (a–k), the notch in profile from the opposite side. The image on the right shows the upper surface of the log, and the three parts of the log (1–3) separated by cracks. White arrows indicate locations of shaping facets on the sides and upper surface of the log.
Barham, L., Duller, G.A.T., Candy, I. et al.
Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago.
Nature (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06557-9
Copyright: © 2023 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)
The standard creationist way to dismiss these inconvenient real-world facts is to either bear false witness against the scientists, accusing them of lying or being part of a massive world-wide Satanic conspiracy, or to bear false witness against science in general claiming the dating methods used are designed to give the results the scientists want and can make 8,000 years look like 500,000 years, or whatever discrepancy suits the evidence being dismissed.
What they will never do is what intellectually honest people do - change their minds when the facts change. For example, anthropologists will now be reassessing their understanding of the technological development of archaic hominins and what that says about their cognitive abilities, whilst creationists will be looking for excuses to cope with the dissonance between the real world and their delusional world, and being shame-faced hypocrites or pretending to be too stupid to understand science will be tools in their mental toolbox.
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