300,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools "Made By Denisovans" Discovered In China

[Judi Lynn]

"There's no question they were smart, they were intelligent, they were advanced," study author Prof Bo Li told IFLScience.

Benjamin Taub
Freelance Writer

A remarkable collection of wooden tools dated to around 300,000 years ago has been discovered at an archaeological site in southwest China. Specially designed to harvest vegetation, the assemblage reveals how prehistoric hominids in this subtropical environment relied heavily on plants for their diet, while also highlighting the surprising technological skill of East Asian humans at a time when the region was supposedly inhabited by primitive communities.

“Around 300,000 years ago in Europe you had the Middle Palaeolithic [when stone tool technology advanced rapidly], but in East Asia there’s very little change in stone artifacts until the arrival of modern humans 40,000 to 45,000 years ago,” said Professor Bo Li, author of a new study about the discovery. The assumption was therefore that technological innovation had been lagging in this part of the world, “but this discovery really revolutionizes our understanding of the technique and the cultural industry of Paleolithic East Asia,” he told IFLScience.

The collection of wooden artifacts was unearthed at a lakeside site called Gantangqing and includes 35 items showing clear evidence of shaping and use by humans, with whittling marks and intentionally smoothed surfaces and knots found on many of the relics. Applying cutting-edge dating methods to calculate the age of feldspar minerals in the surrounding sediment, the study authors determined that the tools were manufactured between 361,000 and 250,000 years ago.

Mostly made of pine – with a few hardwood exceptions – the tools include large digging sticks and smaller, hook-like implements that may have been used for slicing through plant roots. Such finds are incredibly rare due to the fact that wooden artifacts decompose and therefore tend not to appear in the archaeological record.

More:
https://www.iflscience.com/300000-year-old-wooden-tools-made-by-denisovans-discovered-in-china-79857

[Easterncedar]

1. Astounding. You keep sparking my old brain, Judi Lynn

Thanks.