Oldest so far. I mean let's be legit, wood decomposes easy. We know there is older, just not preserved.
And statistically, considering how easy wood decomposes, the fact that we find one means there was probably a lot of worked wood.
Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
101–110 of 112 posts
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I would need to see it. Marks in wood would be totally expected in a bonfire used to create and test tools with fire hardened tips If we are both talking about the same structure, I don't see striations, but the photo mentions two cracks. If those are really cracks (and not engravings carved superficially) this would reinforce my theory.
The logs are "joined transversely by an intentionally cut notch". And I don't think researcher would just confuse bonfire and modified wood :) That's their expertise. Read the (peer reviewed) research paper. You'll see how serious the research is: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9
> You do know that this paper is published in Nature, right? Unless you're an archeologist with a credible track record I doubt that you have the expertise to effectively argue that this is find is not credible.
> I don't think researcher would just confuse bonfire and modified wood :) That's their expertise.
Appeal to the authority. I'm not scared, baby. I'd go anywhere. If is printed in nature then is true, right? gods speak...
noope
We need to understand that articles published in nature can be retracted. Here is a small list of five pages:
https://www.nature.com/nature/articles?type=retraction
There is a detail in that photo that opens a door to the possibility that the datation could be incorrect all the way long. I wrote yesterday about it at home, but will reserve my opinion until ruminating a little more about it.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#103Don't understand why they had seen a refuge there. Looks much more like a bonfire to me. This wood looks cut in a tip and partially burnt in the other, and the fire makes this notches easily when two logs overlap. Also explains the preservation of the wood, as it was sterilized by fire (maybe minutes before a rain fell or a flood hit). Also the size of the logs (1,5m is too short for a home, but perfect to be carried…
There are chopping marks and striations that show the notches were worked with tools. It’s only two logs so I can’t jump to structure but it’s wood that was worked to lock together for some purpose. Maybe structure is meant in the more general sense?
Seen. Is a nice computer 3D image, and looks very clean and professional, but the interpretation is still wrong.
My opinion didn't changed a dime. Slope too wide. We don't work like that, so they neither would. Those are not man made.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#104How 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.
Actually, iron rusts away so quickly that it's hard to recover them from the ground after only a millennium or two. Bronze tends to fare much better in that regard.
Wood can last quite a while if it's buried in an environment that inhibits microbial degradation, such as a highly acidic bog, where iron doesn't stand a chance.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Beavers lack the social mechanisms to transmit knowledge across time and space. So either they are all independently inventing exactly the same solution to the problem... or it's some sort of instinctual compulsion.
We have similar compulsions too. Humans have an instinct to seek shelter, for example. You might say "well thats because we are taught this etc etc" but at the same time, all great apes shelter, our hominid ancestors sheltered, we shelter today, there is clearly an instinct to shelter even if we have these conscious thoughts around it. I bet if you had a perfectly feral human and had them in a clearing in a rain stor…
Of course this is true.
But if you put a feral human in the middle of a clearing in a rainstorm, they wouldn't build modern civilisation.
Beavers only do what is innate and what they can independently invent in one lifetime, because they aren't substantially sharing knowledge.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
That Atlantis was real and probably had steam engines and lasers and psychic powers when everyone else was still hunting dinosaurs but then a global catastrophe wiped out the world (again) and here we are, half their size and half their glory. I don’t think it’s that crazy. What’s crazy is thinking eggs are bad for you and that the fabric of reality itself is nothing but a social construct
Is there much evidence that eggs are good for you? We’re still hunting dinosaurs. Wild Turkey season opens pretty soon where I am.
It's pretty well established that humans need food to live.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#107Woah, 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.
Hancock is a charlatan of the worst kind, in that I firmly believe he fully knows the vast majority of what he says is utter bullshit, but he keeps on saying it because it's garnering him a ton of money and attention. "They" (rightly, mind you) call him crazy for claiming the pyramids are 12000 years old, despite huge volumes of verifiable evidence strongly refuting such claims (Literally 100s of carbon dates from organic materials in mortar remnants between blocks, stratigraphy, lexical references like the Merer texts, etc.), and despite the lack of single shred of credible evidence for any of his claims other than his typical "This rock here looks like that rock on the other side of the world so the pyramids are 12000 years old and Atlantis is real" nonsense.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#108Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there much evidence that eggs are good for you? We’re still hunting dinosaurs. Wild Turkey season opens pretty soon where I am.
It's pretty well established that humans need food to live.
That’s not germane; eggs aren’t the only good humans can eat.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think for steam engines and laser tech, there would have to be some sort of evidence to be found. The only slightly "plausible" theory might be, if a advanced civilisation would have had psychic powers (quantumnwaves something) and no need for conventional tech, then there is a reason nothing can be found today. And then of course there was a global mage war, with all the psychic powers burned out of the minds of h…
I made that up about the psychic powers because I thought it was funny but that’s why people doubt Hancock. An advanced civilization, whether here or in space, leaves debris. If we can find the Titanic we should be able to find the Atlanteans. Maybe.
>An advanced civilization, whether here or in space, leaves debris.
Not really. Just look at abandoned places today, and you can see how quickly nature takes them over and erases them. Sometimes traces can be found, like ancient cities that are sometimes found in the jungle of central America, but that's after ~500 years or less. On much longer timescales, nature and geology bury or destroy most evidence. If you're really lucky, something might be dug up, but that's rare. The only reason so many prehistoric fossils (dinosaurs etc) have been found is because there are SO many of them: they existed for hundreds of millions of years, all over the planet, so we've captured a tiny slice of what lies beneath the surface.
Perhaps there's some evidence of a past advanced civilization buried somewhere, but we haven't found it yet.
The Titanic is barely over 100 years old, so of course it's (partially) still there.
Re: Archaeologists discover oldest wooden structure
#110What 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…
They're normal.
When our first ancestor stood upright, a right angle was formed with the ground.
A hand axe, a knapped stone lashed at right angles to a branch.
Some say fire or dogs are humanity's first and greatest inventions - but we only domesticated those.
I say weaving: an extraordinary crossing of threads at right angles that magically support each other, clothing that is the biblical coming-or-age of human-kind, fabric that drapes organically (and is still used today, even as threads become artificial), rope, leaves for shelter, even decorating hair.
And it directly lead to the single greatest invention of our time, that binds all things together: gaffer tape.