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430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

nytimes.com

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Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#141

Post by mmooss »

layer8 wrote: post #134
mmooss wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people of the Olduvan industry from 2.58 mya tools (the earliest accepted by consensus [0]) manufactured their tools - that's exactly what archaeologists are talking about. Chimps and New Caledonian Crows (and maybe some other animals) also manufacture their tools, at least sometimes, BTW. IIRC the crows strip sticks and bend them into hooks to grab at objects. Why would someone imply otherwise if they don't know…

Not sure what you are asking. My point was that animals using objects as tools is a different thing than the Oldowan stone tool manufacturing “industry”. I wasn’t saying that tool manufacture is exclusive to primates. However, pointing out mere tool use by non-primates is sort of beside the point of the TFA topic, IMO.

> My point was that animals using objects as tools is a different thing than the Oldowan stone tool manufacturing “industry”.

Agreed, though the dividing line is tricky.

(Your prior comment didn't say 95% of that; for example, it doesn't mention animals. Because the parent comments were focused on human ancestors, that's what I thought you were addressing.)

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#142

Post by adastra22 »

throwup238 wrote: post #101
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) I’m going to use a charged word because Jane Goodall used it. Goodall asserted that humans and chimpanzees (and wolves) are unique among animals in that we have a genocidal tendency [1]. When a group attacks us (or has “land and resources” we want) we don’t just chase them off. We exterminate them. We expend great resources to track them down to ensure they c…

> (and wolves) And lions. And banded mongooses. And meerkats. And ants. Lots and lots of ant species - they’re actually by far the worst, following colony pheromones to the end of the earth just to get a single ant. Ants that aren’t genocidal to their own species tend to be some of the worst invasive species (like Argentinian ant supercolonies). I love me some Jane Goodall as much as the next guy but that hypothesis…

Agree with your this-is-not-unique-to-primates take. But why is genocidal not accurate?

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#143

Post by brightbeige »

guywithahat wrote: post #137

What's incredible about this too is they found it in England, which means they had to first build a boat to get there and leave the tools on the island

England wasn’t always an island

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doggerland

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#144

Post by catigula »

bookofjoe wrote: post #57
mmooss wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I knew, the 3.3 mya evidence from the site Lomekwi 3 in Kenya was debatable, though a serious possibility, and the 2.58 mya evidence from the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania was considered the sure thing. Also, more than primates use tools: Many corvids (crows, ravens, etc.) do, as do other animals. Look up New Caledonian Crows in particular. But don't take all this from HN commenters debating each other; find some au…

Most recently (January 19, 2026): cows >Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)...

This reminds me of "koko the gorilla can speak English" stuff. Need to disambiguate learned mimickry from the real thing.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#145

Post by ErroneousBosh »

OJFord wrote: post #135
throwup238 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tools predate homo sapiens (which emerged about 300 kYA) by millions of years. The first stone industry - Oldowan - is at least two million years old and might be as old as three million. They predate what we call “archaic humans” by a long time. Even this evidence of woodworking is largely unremarkable. We’ve got phytolith [1] and microwear [2] studies showing unambiguous evidence of woodworking going back at least…

The submission's subheading seems to imply that there was a gap where homo* emerged but weren't using tools then though? I can't read the article or copy-paste it due to pay wall, but it says something along the lines of the find suggesting our human ancestors were using tools longer ago than we thought.

Way back when I was in high school doing history (Money for Nothing was on heavy rotation on the radio and Bob from Stranger Things was still Mikey from the Goonies), our teacher explained that there was evidence of stone tools being used by early hominids, then nothing much except maybe fragments of rock that may have been used as hammers or axe heads, and then into an era where simple bronze tools emerged. What archeologists believed, she said, was that people went from "big chunk of rock" to "small delicate bit of rock tied with strips of animal hide to a stick" to "big chunk of metal", and the wood and animal hide had simply rotted away. There would be this whole lost chunk of technology.

And she told us that would likely happen again, there would be a gap where our technology proved to be insufficiently durable to last throughout history. Unsurprisingly not everyone in the class thought this was likely, but I figured it was possible.

Anyway, I could go on about the archeology of tech all night, but I've got to figure out how to get the photos off this Kodak DC25 camera card. Something about a DLL from the original installer that you wrap in a Linux library? Can't remember.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#146

Post by mockbuild »

bookofjoe wrote: post #57
mmooss wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I knew, the 3.3 mya evidence from the site Lomekwi 3 in Kenya was debatable, though a serious possibility, and the 2.58 mya evidence from the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania was considered the sure thing. Also, more than primates use tools: Many corvids (crows, ravens, etc.) do, as do other animals. Look up New Caledonian Crows in particular. But don't take all this from HN commenters debating each other; find some au…

Most recently (January 19, 2026): cows >Flexible use of a multi-purpose tool by a cow https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(25)...

Multi-purpose egocentric tool use.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#147

Post by mkl »

notorandit wrote: post #96

I wonder how would we react with tools dating back to, say, 5MY ago ... That would shake our knowledge from the foundations.

No it wouldn't, as we already think it's pretty likely. Chimpanzees use tools, so our most recent common ancestor with them, something like 6 million years ago, may well have used tools too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tool_use_by_non-humans, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chimpanzee%E2%80%93human_last_...

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#148

Post by fragmede »

BirAdam wrote: post #119
zahlman wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veronika_(cow) might be a better Wikipedia link. Honestly I would have expected a pig or horse to be discovered to use tools, rather than a cow. Cattle are generally... not thought of as particularly intelligent.

Well, most cattle aren't given much to stimulate them, and they're bred for meat production and complacency. People aren't exactly looking to make the life of cattle fun or enjoyable.

That's the goal of https://www.cowbrushes.com/store ! They provide mental stimulation and scritches for cows. Results in extra milk, too.

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#149

Post by walkerbrown »

adgjlsfhk1 wrote: post #33
drakythe wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait hang on, would they "control" file by finding natural sources (volcano, lightning strike wildfire, etc.) and then make use of that source for controlled sources of light/heat/etc? I guess I've always thought of "control" of fire including the intentional starting thereof.

> Wait hang on, would they "control" file by finding natural sources (volcano, lightning strike wildfire, etc.) and then make use of that source for controlled sources of light/heat/etc? Pretty much. Being able to transfer/build a fire is a lot easier than starting one. Fire starting requires bow/flint&steel and a lot of patience. Control basically means using simple torches to transfer fire from one place to another…

Some very recently published research (Dec 2025) claims evidence of fire starting among homo neanderthalensis. This would push back fire starting know-how (not only control) from 50k to 400k years ago. Cool stuff!

[1] https://www.nhm.ac.uk/press-office/press-releases/groundbrea...

Re: 430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found

#150

Post by dh2022 »

abetusk wrote: post #43
drakythe wrote: post #5

430,000 years? Am I reading this headline correctly? (since the site seems to have fallen victim to the HN-hug-of-death). That seems wildly further back than I understood humans to have tools, or even homo sapiens to have existed. ETA: Today I learned I had a much much larger gap in knowledge than I thought I did. Thanks to everyone for the information and links!

As others mentioned, tool use wasn't restricted to homo sapiens. I think this makes sense, no? We didn't spontaneously use tools, it must have evolved incrementally in some way. I think we see shades of this today. Bearded Capuchin monkeys chain a complex series of tasks and use tools to break nuts. From a brief documentary clip I saw [0], they first take the nut and strip away the outer layer of skin, leave it dry o…

This process also display coordination within a group and memory. Quite impressive.
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