Scientists have uncovered wooden tools dating back 430,000 years, believed to be the oldest wooden tools discovered yet. The artifacts were found at a lake shore in Greece’s Megalopolis basin, according to new research published on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. One of the tools is an alder trunk measuring two and a half feet, which could have been used for digging in the mud. The other is a small chunk of willow or poplar wood that could have been used to shape stone tools. The wooden tools recovered from a site called Marathousa 1 “represent the earliest handheld wooden tools, and include a new tool type, together demonstrating the importance of systematic investigation of early wood remains,” researchers said. The newly uncovered artifacts were possibly buried by sediment and preserved by a wet environment. The researchers didn’t directly date the wooden tools, but the site where they were found is about 430,000 years old, providing insight into their age.
