When you buy through our articles links, Future and its syndication partners can earn commissions.
Archaeologists revealed the oldest wooden tools ever found in East Asia. | Credit: Bo Li
Archaeologists have discovered 35 wooden tools from the old Chinese Stone Age, which they say show impressive mastery, advanced cognitive skills and offer new insights on what ancient people could eat.
According to a study published Thursday (July 3) in a magazine, 300,000 years old are the oldest wooden artefacts ever documented in East Asia Science; These include digging sticks made of pine and hardwood, hooks for cutting roots and small, pointed implements to extract edible plants from the ground.
“This discovery is exceptional because it retains the moment when early people have used modern wooden tools to remove underground food resources,” the study author Bo liA professor at the University of Wollongong University Australia University of the Earth, atmosphere and Life Sciences, said a a statement;
The tools dated to the early Paleolithic period, also known as the old age of the Stone (3.3-300,000 years ago). Wooden artifacts from this time are very rare for organic decomposition, and only a few archaeological places have only a handful of archaeological sites gave similar objectsAccording to the new study. But most of these objects including A spear from Schöningen in Germanywere for hunting – these newly created tools were created to dig.
Researchers found that the tools buried in “oxygen poor clay” in the sediments of the ancient lake Gantangqing, archaeological place in the southwestern China’s Yunnan province. The sediment has retained conscious polishing and scraping marks on the tools, as well as plants and soil remain in some countries that have given researchers hints of tool function.
Related: Pfyn Culture Flint Tool: The oldest known “Swiss Army” knife
“Our results show that Gantangqing hominines strategically used lake shore food resources,” the researchers wrote in the study. “
Such planned visits show that 300,000 years ago, ancestors in East Asia were preparing and using tools for specific purposes, showing a great deal of insight and intent, the researchers wrote. Artifacts also show that these early people have a good idea of which plants and parts of the plants have been eaten, the researchers noted.
The tools were preserved for poor oxygen clay sediment. | Credit: Bo Li
“The tools show the level of planning and craftsmanship, which disputes that East Asian hominines were technologically conservative,” Li said in a statement. This idea is based on previous discoveries in East Asia stone tools that seemed “primitive” compared to the measures found in Western Eurasia and Africa, according to a study.
Related stories
– Is it a stone tool or just a rock? An archaeologist explains how scientists can tell the difference
-1.5 million years of bone tools created by human ancestors in Tanzania are the oldest of their species
-150,000 years of stone tools reveal that people lived in the rainforest much before they thought
Researchers Datino tools using Li -designed technique that uses infrared luminescence, and another method is called Electron rotation resonanceThis measures the age of the substances through many electrons stuck inside its crystal defects due to the natural effect of radiation. Both made estimates showing that the wooden tools were between 250,000 and 361,000 years.
The plant remains on the tools not set because their decomposition is too advanced, but the other plant remains in the gantangqing, showing that the early people there ate berries, pine nuts, hazelnuts, kiwi fruits and water clumps, according to the study.
“The discovery disputes earlier assumptions about early human adaptation,” Li said in a statement. “Although modern European sites (such as Schöningen in Germany) focused on hunting large mammals, Gantangqing reveals a unique plant -based survival strategy.”