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Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

news.liverpool.ac.uk

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Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#41

Post by xeromal »

mlhpdx wrote: post #38
xeromal wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a raft would still be considered a structure or at least more than just used for fire or spears. It's a purpose-build device that was constructed to achieve a problem. I don't think what it is matters more than it was built in the first place to solve a problem. Those logs look too big for a raft though

In the video they specifically talk about a platform for building on, and there is mention of this find contracting conclusions about the nomadic nature of “folks” at the time. Both indicate they went straight to the abode idea. The youngest of children will start assembling logs near shore when swimming at a lake. The crossing of the logs would help stabilize them so crossing would be safer and dry, which is critica…

I guess my point was less about what the structure is and more that it'd a significant discovery regardless of what it is.

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#42

Post by rhelz »

greggsy wrote: post #32
rhelz wrote: post #30

What struck me is that the two pieces of wood were found notched together at a 90-degree angle. This has got to be the first-known 90-degree angle in history. Virtually nothing in nature has a 90-degree angle. This is an invention of the highest order. EDIT: thanks for all the good responses; I should have written a bit more carefully--I meant to say that this might be the first-known time a 90-degree angle was delib…

Surely stone tools have demonstrated perpendicular attributes. It’s not too far of a stretch to imagine a Palaeolithic hunter aligning an axe head against a handle in a way that made it even on either side.

I haven't seen any stone tools with perpendicular sides. In fact, I don't know of any other 90-degree stonework until the T-stones at Gobekle Tepe. If you could point me to some examples I'd be very much interested in knowing about them.

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#43

Post by danparsonson »

anotheraccount9 wrote: post #23
labrador wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you find 470,000 year old wood that isn't petrified?

I would really like to know the answer, if anyone wants to share.

It's a rhetorical question - you don't usually find wood that old except in very specific situations like this where conditions happen to have been right for preservation.

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#44

Post by foota »

_a_a_a_ wrote: post #16
foota wrote: post #8

How amazing would it be to discover that an ancient civilization existed with a technology level on par with the iron age or so? I guess if we were finding dinosaurs though the odds we wouldn't have found anything from that time are maybe slim.

Iron artefacts are likely to last much better than wood ones, so if that was so we'd likely have much evidence collected.

Yeah, I guess it would have to have either been long enough ago that it's been erased by geology (which seems somewhat infeasibly long ago wrt the evolutionary timeline) or recent enough that we would likely have found a trace of it by now. I guess the only chance is for some missing link far in the evolutionary past that was erased by e.g., one of the past mass extinctions.

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#45

Post by alehlopeh »

foota wrote: post #27
alehlopeh wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have found many ancient civilizations with a technology on par with the Iron Age. They’re called Iron Age civilizations.

Sorry, I mean, long before the iron age.

If a civilization was discovered with Iron Age technology before what is the currently accepted beginning of the Iron Age, wouldn't that just mean the Iron Age started earlier than previously thought?

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#46

Post by mlhpdx »

xeromal wrote: post #41
mlhpdx wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the video they specifically talk about a platform for building on, and there is mention of this find contracting conclusions about the nomadic nature of “folks” at the time. Both indicate they went straight to the abode idea. The youngest of children will start assembling logs near shore when swimming at a lake. The crossing of the logs would help stabilize them so crossing would be safer and dry, which is critica…

I guess my point was less about what the structure is and more that it'd a significant discovery regardless of what it is.

Oh yeah, totally agree.

I’m a little sensitive about the kind of extrapolations that are so common with some of these articles/announcements - it doesn’t make science look good, and it’s important that science does.

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#47

Post by api »

DabbyDabberson wrote: post #40

Woah, every new discovery really makes Graham Hancock seem a bit less crazy. 476,000 years is a HUGE jump. They called him crazy for thinking that the Egyptians had structures 12,000 years ago.

The crazy stuff he says is not the stuff about civilization going back further than conventional models. There are numerous archeologists who argue that and their positions are usually considered outside the mainstream but not insane.

Hancock says a lot of other things that are actually crazy, and like many people he’s gotten much worse lately.

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#48

Post by [deleted] »

throwaway892238 wrote: post #39
rhelz wrote: post #30

What struck me is that the two pieces of wood were found notched together at a 90-degree angle. This has got to be the first-known 90-degree angle in history. Virtually nothing in nature has a 90-degree angle. This is an invention of the highest order. EDIT: thanks for all the good responses; I should have written a bit more carefully--I meant to say that this might be the first-known time a 90-degree angle was delib…

There are millions of mineral and rock formations around the world with 90 degree angles. A tree/flower stem/etc and the ground form a 90 degree angle. A branch coming straight out of a tree trunk (common in pines, or some other evergreen) makes a right angle. A vine or spanish moss dangling from a branch makes a right angle. Two logs or branches that fall on each other in the forest serendipitously form a right angl…

[deleted]

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#49

Post by danparsonson »

jl6 wrote: post #4

How do they know the wood was used 476,000 years ago, as opposed to a human 6000 years ago finding and using some 470,000 year old wood? This gives a hint: > 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. ... but it seems like there might be other explanations for that sand being there?

This is the usual way of dating buried archaeological finds - you work out when the thing was buried by studying the surrounding material. In this case the specific dating technique is new, but the principle is well established. If you find something buried in material that was laid down 470,000 years ago, then the thing was buried at that time. Assuming teleportation doesn't exist, how else could the artefacts get there? The only other option I can think of is deliberate burial and I imagine archaeologists would already have considered that idea.

As to finding and using extremely old wood - wood does not survive that long except in cases of very specific environmental conditions like this one; surely another reason to expect that the wood has lain undisturbed for its entire history, rather than having been dug up and turned into some structure a few thousand years ago (then buried again).

Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure

#50

Post by bagels »

api wrote: post #47
DabbyDabberson wrote: post #40

Woah, every new discovery really makes Graham Hancock seem a bit less crazy. 476,000 years is a HUGE jump. They called him crazy for thinking that the Egyptians had structures 12,000 years ago.

The crazy stuff he says is not the stuff about civilization going back further than conventional models. There are numerous archeologists who argue that and their positions are usually considered outside the mainstream but not insane. Hancock says a lot of other things that are actually crazy, and like many people he’s gotten much worse lately.

What are the actual crazy things?
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