430k-year-old well-preserved wooden tools are the oldest ever found • Hacker News Board

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

#221

Post by 3RTB297 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:55 AM UTC

jrflowers wrote: post #116

3RTB297 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the person you asked this of, but I've worked in museums and research settings and can lob a response your way. Ultimately, it's that scientists are humans, too. Despite some of them really making their research data-forward, things like tenure, career, funding, and even who would publish your work now and in the future all create normal human environments that reward small, incremental changes to a body of k…

>So until overwhelming evidence surfaces, which can take decades or longer, claims like this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand until proven solidly in error. A theory is a theory, so let it be a theory. I like how the word “overwhelming” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Imagine if those 100 scientists had gotten their way and Einstein had retracted his Relativity paper. It would have taken decades of observations of gravitational lensing before someone else proposed gravity affects light and why, and then said "huh.... yeah, I guess this other guy had a similar theory a while back."

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

#222

Post by 3RTB297 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 5:58 AM UTC

Hikikomori wrote: post #200

3RTB297 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the person you asked this of, but I've worked in museums and research settings and can lob a response your way. Ultimately, it's that scientists are humans, too. Despite some of them really making their research data-forward, things like tenure, career, funding, and even who would publish your work now and in the future all create normal human environments that reward small, incremental changes to a body of k…

>Both warm-blooded dinosaurs and the Chicxulub impact were both theories dismissed as fringe for decades before overwhelming evidence led to them being accepted as likely. In no small way thanks to Jurassic Park. I mean that's how science works. Things can be dismissed until they're proven true. If there's a valid path to finding out it's true then you can try to get funding, it just takes work and convincing people…

>dismissed as fringe

>I mean that's how science works.

So you're saying it's a good thing to dismiss potential new discoveries because of feels? Not investigate further, not look for additional data to refute the theory or not. Just dismiss as crackpot BS? IIRC, that's not how science works.

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

#223

Post by 3RTB297 » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 6:09 AM UTC

mmooss wrote: post #54

3RTB297 wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not the person you asked this of, but I've worked in museums and research settings and can lob a response your way. Ultimately, it's that scientists are humans, too. Despite some of them really making their research data-forward, things like tenure, career, funding, and even who would publish your work now and in the future all create normal human environments that reward small, incremental changes to a body of k…

> I've worked in museums and research settings You've worked in those settings, and you think archaeologists reject tool use older than 1 mya? Also, you don't understand that science is a process, based on evidence, and revision is an essential part of that process? Archaeology especially advances regularly, because evidence can be relatively very rare. If they weren't revising it, it would mean the whole research en…

>Also, you don't understand that science is a process, based on evidence, and revision is an essential part of that process?

I do, and the process is exactly the point. That human emotions affect the process far more often than we like to admit. Not always, but it's not completely removed from the process by any means.

In each of those cases, it's that no one says, "Oh, new theory, new evidence. Cool, let's test the hell out of it!"

People in positions of relative power sometimes say, "New theory? Nope. Not even going to look at it. No, in fact, you're crazy and you're wrong and get outta here!"

In each of those examples, to some degree the eventual more accurate theory met emotional resistance by people adhering to the status quo, not resistance because of questionable data or poor research methods or non-reproducibility.

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

#224

Post by s20n » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 6:21 AM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #8

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!

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…

But the article says "our human ancestors" which implies they are not talking about other hominins."

Edit: Okay I just found that Human can also refer to other hominids

from: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/human

- a bipedal primate mammal (Homo sapiens) : a person

- broadly : hominid

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

#225

Post by SJC_Hacker » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 7:08 AM UTC

api wrote: post #176

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…

Sometimes when I think about this it makes me wonder if we should take the dark forest hypothesis seriously (re: Fermi paradox). Not only are we the only species to reach this kind of technology but among humans the first group to reach space was the Nazis. Today the innovation in that area seems driven by militaristic states and by people who seem ideologically adjacent. In other words it’s driven by very aggressive…

There could be life on other planets. It could even be (somewhat) suitable for humans to live without a full space suit

But I find it unlikely the exact combination of factors, of which there are dozens or more, will be present such that it’s any place anyone actually wants to settle. Like what if the planet was much like Earth except the gravity was 1.2G. Or the atmosphere was only 500 mb, or surface temp was just barely above freezing. That would be deal breaker for just about everyone

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

#226

Post by WalterBright » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 7:08 AM UTC

WalterBright wrote: post #187

MarcelOlsz wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The worst part of reading this thread is I know I won't be able to google image anything interesting related to "non-human hominids" :( Your comment was oddly depressing lol. Real "are we the baddies?" moment this morning.

> Real "are we the baddies?" moment this morning Humans have a well-earned nickname: "murder apes"

If you think we're peaceful basketballs, you haven't been provoked. The veneer of civilization is rather thin.

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

#227

Post by jrflowers » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 7:35 AM UTC

3RTB297 wrote: post #221

jrflowers wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>So until overwhelming evidence surfaces, which can take decades or longer, claims like this shouldn't be dismissed out of hand until proven solidly in error. A theory is a theory, so let it be a theory. I like how the word “overwhelming” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

Imagine if those 100 scientists had gotten their way and Einstein had retracted his Relativity paper. It would have taken decades of observations of gravitational lensing before someone else proposed gravity affects light and why, and then said "huh.... yeah, I guess this other guy had a similar theory a while back."

Imagine if 100 scientists had gotten together to refute the theory of Yakub. Yet many just dismiss it out of hand. Guess it’s a valid theory until such a time comes that science devotes sufficient attention to it that an overwhelming amount of scientists spend their time specifically proving it wrong or right

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

#228

Post by ErroneousBosh » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 8:35 AM UTC

eru wrote: post #160

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 arc…

> 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. I heard that fear being muttered mostly about everything going digital and that's much harder for archaeologists to dig up than paper or stone tablets. However, that's…

> we are producing garbage that'll last much longer than anything the ancients could muster. What with all our metal, glass, plastic etc.

I'm convinced that in a not-too-distant few tens of thousand years, archeologists will be baffled at all these massive deposits of iron, copper, and aluminium - well on its way back to the oxides from whence it came, but chunks of highly refined stuff in among it, presumably at great expense - and for some reason labelled with extremely durable placards made out of ridiculously tough plastic with letters embossed in them. The precise meanings of "SJ12 YPF", "Y196 NBA", "RFS 131Y", or "R420 BRL" will remain lost to the depths of time.

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

#229

Post by globular-toast » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 9:04 AM UTC

melenaboija wrote: post #114

Ok, since I moved to the US from Europe a few years ago my perception of wood has changed a lot, especially for construction. Seeing this reinforces my view. Wood lasts for fucking ever under the proper conditions. Old construction in Europe often only had the beams made of wood, and I always thought that was orders of magnitude more durable than wooden houses, like thousands of years vs decades. I don’t think that’s…

There are wooden framed houses built in the UK now, particularly in Scotland. The problem with a lot of American houses is the piss poor insulation which leads to energy usage 2-3x that of equivalent European houses. Maybe that's changing now.

A big problem with houses is we never rebuild. It's kind of crazy. We replace almost everything else eventually, including commercial buildings. Skyscrapers only last a few decades. But we expect houses to last forever. But they're only getting older. Is it possible to strip a wood building right back to the frame and start again?

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

#230

Post by xandrius » Wed, Jan 28, 2026, 9:05 AM UTC

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…

No, we could have had something which other previous species didn't that unlocked the use of tools. Otherwise if no species could be the first, or it would be deemed spontaneous, no new skills could be unlocked.