Archeology changes knowledge of human nomadic past – 09/21/2023 – Science

The discovery of wooden logs on the banks of a river in Zambia has changed archaeologists’ understanding of ancient human life.

Researchers have found evidence that wood was used to build a structure nearly half a million years ago.

The evidence, published this Wednesday (20) in the journal Nature, suggests that Stone Age people may have used the structure as a shelter.

“The discovery changed the way I think about our earliest ancestors,” says archaeologist Larry Barham.

He, a scientist at the University of Liverpool, leads the Deep Roots of Humanity research project, which excavated and analyzed ancient wood.

The discovery could transform the prevailing belief that ancient humans led simple, nomadic lives.

“They made something new, and big, out of wood,” said Professor Barham.

“They used their intelligence, imagination and skills to create something they had never seen before, something that had never existed.”

Researchers also discovered ancient wooden tools, including digging sticks, at the site. But what generated the most excitement were two perpendicular pieces of wood found.

“One is on top of the other and both logs have notches,” reports archaeologist Geoff Duller from Aberystwyth University.

“You can clearly see that these carvings were made by stone tools.”

“This causes the two pieces to fit together to become structural objects.”

Further analysis confirmed that the trunks were around 476,000 years old.

Perrice Nkombwe of the Livingstone Museum in Zambia took part in the exploration and said: “I was amazed to discover that woodworking was such a deeply rooted tradition.”

“I realized we had discovered something extraordinary.”

Until now, evidence for the use of wood in ancient human life has been limited to fire-making and tool-making such as digging sticks and spears.

Luminescence dating

One of the oldest wooden item discoveries was a 400,000-year-old spear in the prehistoric sands of Clacton-on-Sea in the United Kingdom in 1911.

Unless preserved under very specific conditions, wood typically rots.

But on the winding banks of the river above Kalambo Falls, near the border between Zambia and Tanzania, the trunks found have been waterlogged and preserved for millennia.

The team measured the age of the layers of earth in which they were buried, using luminescence dating.

Over time, grains of rock absorb natural radioactivity from the environment — essentially charging themselves like small batteries, explains Duller.

And this radioactivity can be released and measured by heating the grains and then analyzing the light emitted.

The size of the two logs, the smaller of which is about 1.5m, suggests that whoever joined them was building something substantial.

It is unlikely that it was a cabin or permanent residence, but it could be part of a shelter, in the team’s analysis.

“It could be a structure to sit on the riverbank and fish,” explained Duller.

“But it’s hard to say what kind of structure [completa] it might have been.”

It’s also unclear which ancient humans — or hominids — built it.

No human bones have been found at the site so far.

And the wooden logs found are much older than the first fossils of modern man, the Homo sapiensknown, which are around 315 thousand years old.

“It could have been the Homo sapiensbut still we haven’t discovered fossils of that age,” said Duller.

“But it could be a different species—the Homo erectus or Homo naledi. There were a number of hominid species at that time in southern Africa.”

Transported to the UK for analysis and preservation, the wooden items are stored in tanks that mimic the flooding that has preserved them for the last half a million years. But they will soon return to Zambia to be exhibited.

“With this discovery, we hope to enrich our collection and use the finds to qualify the interpretation of the woodworking tradition in Zambia,” said Nkombwe.

This text was originally published here.