Researchers working in southern Greece have identified the oldest known handheld wooden tools, dated to about 430,000 years ago.
The objects came from Marathousa 1, a site in the Megalopolis Basin in the central Peloponnese. The area once held a lakeshore during the Middle Pleistocene, a period between about 774,000 and 129,000 years ago.
Excavations at Marathousa 1 have produced stone flakes, animal bones with cut marks, and the remains of a straight-tusked elephant. Archaeologists link these finds to repeated visits by early humans who processed large carcasses near water. Waterlogged sediments at the site created low oxygen conditions. Such conditions slowed decay and preserved pieces of wood that usually rot away over long spans of time.
Researchers examined dozens of wood fragments under microscopes. They studied surface marks, internal structure, and wood species. This work helped the team separate human modification from damage caused by roots, sediment pressure, or animals. Two fragments showed clear signs of shaping and use.
One piece comes from alder. The surface shows cut marks from stone tools and rounded areas formed through repeated contact with soil. The shape and wear fit use as a digging stick near the lakeshore. Such a tool would have helped with loosening wet ground or extracting plant foods. The second artifact, a very small fragment from willow or poplar, shows carved edges and smoothing from handling. The size points to a finger held tool. Researchers link this piece to fine tasks, such as adjusting stone flakes during tool production.
Specimen Marathousa ID 13, the small wooden tool which is a new wood tool type, documented here for the first time. Currently its function is not known.
Specimen Marathousa ID 39, the digging or multifunctional stick
Artist’s reconstruction of a Marathousa 1 paleolithic woman producing a digging stick from a small adler tree trunk, the kind of wood used for the Marathousa digging stick, using a small stone tool. Credit: Original art by G. Prieto, © K. Harvati
