#Kalambo Falls

[archaeologicalnews]

476,000-Year-Old Wooden Structure Unearthed in Zambia

Archaeologists have found an ancient wooden structure at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls in Zambia. This structure — dated to about 476,000 years ago — has no known parallels in the African or Eurasian Paleolithic and may represent the earliest use of wood in construction.

Wooden artifacts rarely survive from the Early Paleolithic as they require exceptional conditions for preservation.

Therefore, archaeologists have limited information about when and how hominins used this basic raw material or how Paleolithic humans structured their environments.

“Our find has changed how I think about our early ancestors,” said University of Liverpool’s Professor Larry Barham.

“Forget the label ‘Stone Age,’ look at what these people were doing: they made something new, and large, from wood.” Read more.

[ancientstuff]

Incredibly lucky that this was preserved and found. Amazing.

[cisthoughtcrime]

This is so exciting!!

I'm buzzing about this like I'm on my feet

[suzilight]

476,000 years ago

"To date these objects, the researchers analyzed minerals in the sand that surrounded them through a technique called luminescence dating, Geoff Duller, a co-author of the study and dating expert at Aberystwyth University in Wales, tells the AP. The smaller wooden objects were buried around 390,000 and 324,000 years ago."

There are good pics and diagrams of the finds in this Nature article. Found tools - flake tools, cleavers, handaxes and core axes - and the wooden structure. "This construction has no known parallels in the African or Eurasian Palaeolithic."

"...before this new find, the oldest known structure made of wood was only 9,000 years old.." Smithsonian

[fishstickmonkey]

The 476,000-year-old structural unit formed by two overlapping logs. Image credit: Barham et al.,

Modified wood tools from Kalambo Falls, Zambia. Image credit: Barham et al.

Write ups at the Guardian and Science Daily

This big. Really big.

[yallambie]

A concrete way of thinking

The next time you’re handed one of those most improbable of all monetary units, the $100 polymer banknote in loose change with your litre of milk, take a moment to check out the moustachioed gentleman on one side. I’m not talking Dame Melba here but the intrepid General himself, Lieutenant-General Sir John Monash to give the old boy his full title. On their website, the Reserve Bank tells us he’s…

[probablyasocialecologist]

Ancient humans were building large wooden structures – possibly houses – almost half a million years ago. The discovery, the earliest evidence of wooden construction, suggests that some ancient communities were far less nomadic than we have assumed. “These people were behaving in ways I hadn’t expected,” says Larry Barham at the University of Liverpool, UK. “It’s a disruptive discovery.” Barham and his colleagues uncovered the evidence at Kalambo Falls, an archaeological site in Zambia. In 2019, they spent a month excavating a sandbar some 300 metres upstream of the falls. One of the first artefacts they found was a wooden tool, probably a digging stick. “The number of sites where wood is preserved is small,” says researcher Geoff Duller at Aberystwyth University, UK. As they continued to dig, they made another discovery: a 1.4-metre-long log overlying an even larger log that was too big to fully excavate during their month-long project. They saw that the overlying log had been worked with tools to fashion a deep notch midway along its length. This allowed it to interlock with the underlying log at a 75-degree angle, creating a relatively sturdy joint. The researchers speculate that the two interlocking logs were once part of a larger wooden structure. Duller then dated the artefacts using a technique called post-infrared infrared stimulated luminescence. This involves measuring the time since the mineral grains in the sand that surrounded the wood were last exposed to light prior to their burial. The mineral grains – and the artefacts they surround – were buried about 476,000 years ago, which implies that the wooden structure was built before our species evolved. The engineers therefore belonged to an earlier human species, possibly Homo heidelbergensis.

[cantsayidont]

ABSTRACT Wood artefacts rarely survive from the Early Stone Age since they require exceptional conditions for preservation; consequently, we have limited information about when and how hominins used this basic raw material1. We report here on the earliest evidence for structural use of wood in the archaeological record. Waterlogged deposits at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls, Zambia, dated by luminescence to at least 476 ± 23 kyr ago (ka), preserved two interlocking logs joined transversely by an intentionally cut notch. This construction has no known parallels in the African or Eurasian Palaeolithic. The earliest known wood artefact is a fragment of polished plank from the Acheulean site of Gesher Benot Ya’aqov, Israel, more than 780 ka (refs. 2,3). Wooden tools for foraging and hunting appear 400 ka in Europe4,5,6,7,8, China9 and possibly Africa10. At Kalambo we also recovered four wood tools from 390 ka to 324 ka, including a wedge, digging stick, cut log and notched branch. The finds show an unexpected early diversity of forms and the capacity to shape tree trunks into large combined structures. These new data not only extend the age range of woodworking in Africa but expand our understanding of the technical cognition of early hominins11, forcing re-examination of the use of trees in the history of technology12,13.

Holy shit. If it's 476,000 years old, it was not made by humans, but by some of our pre-human hominid ancestors.

Citation:

Barham, L., Duller, G.A.T., Candy, I. et al. Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago. Nature 622, 107–111 (2023). doi:10.1038/s41586-023-06557-9

[greenfrog04]

Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago

Published 20th September 2023

The earliest evidence for structural use of wood in the archaeological record is reported from Kalambo Falls, Zambia, dated by luminescence to at least 476,000 years old.

Wood structure

images of the upper log showing areas of intentional modification

source:

[dreamsandnightscapes]

Kalambo Falls, Zambia

[warningsine]

Archaeologists working near Zambia's Kalambo Falls say they have unearthed the world's oldest wooden structure. 

Embedded in clay and further preserved by a high water table, scientists say the structure, made from the logs of a large-fruited willow tree, was intentionally created roughly 476,000 years ago.

The well-preserved specimen was made before the advent of Homo sapiens, which archaeologists say points to a vastly higher cognitive ability than has been previously ascribed to such ancient ancestors.

The oldest wooden structure known before the announcement of the Zambia find was just 9,000 years old. The oldest known wooden artifact, discovered in Israel, is a 780,000-year-old fragment of plank.

Find also suggests breaks in nomadic lifestyle

Larry Barham, an archaeologist from the University of Liverpool in the UK, told AFP news agency the structure, located above a 235-meter-high (770 foot) waterfall on the banks of Zambia's Kalambo River, had been discovered by chance in 2019.

Barham was the lead author of a paper outlining the find in the scientific journal Nature.

"The framework could have supported a walkway or platform raised above the seasonally wet surroundings. A platform could have multiple purposes including storage of firewood, tools, food and as a foundation on which to place a hut," said Barham.

"Not only did the working of trees require considerable skill, the right tools and planning, the effort involved suggests that the makers were staying in the location for extended periods whereas we have always had a model of Stone Age people as nomadic," Barham added.

"Use of wood in this way suggests the cognitive ability to these early humans was greater than we have believed based on stone tools alone," according to Barham.

Scientists also discovered numerous wooden tools from the same time at the site, though they say no skeletal remains have been discovered.

Homo heidelbergensis, smarter than he looked

Scientist Barham suggested the structure, which "involves the intentional shaping of two trees to create a framework of two interlocking supports," was likely created by a species that lived between 700,000 and 200,000 years ago known as Homo heidelbergensis.

The species had a larger brow, larger braincase and flatter face than earlier human species.

Barham told AFP that Homo heidelbergensis fossils have been previously found in the region.

The oldest Homo sapiens fossils known to date were found in Morocco and determined to be roughly 300,000 years old.

Wood last saw sunlight half a million years ago

Though wooden artifacts were first unearthed at the site in the 1950s and 60s, scientists at the time were unable to accurately determine their age.

Archaeologists working on the current specimens used what is called luminescence dating, a new technique that determines age by measuring the last time minerals were exposed to sunlight.

The discovery said Barham: "changed how I thought about these people. They transformed their surroundings to make life easier, even if it was only by making a platform to sit on by the river to do their daily chores," he said.

"They used their intelligence, imagination and skills to create something they'd never seen before, something that had never previously existed."

[giantcypress]

Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago →

Lawrence Barham et al., in a paper published in Nature on 20-Sep-2023:

Wood artefacts rarely survive from the Early Stone Age since they require exceptional conditions for preservation; consequently, we have limited information about when and how hominins used this basic raw material1. We report here on the earliest evidence for structural use of wood in the archaeological record. Waterlogged deposits at the archaeological site of Kalambo Falls, Zambia, dated by luminescence to at least 476 ± 23 kyr ago (ka), preserved two interlocking logs joined transversely by an intentionally cut notch.

476,000 years ago, and I'm pretty sure there was an early human saying, "I could do that, too, if I had all the rocks Thag has."

[friendswithclay]

“Musical instrument, amangwengwe.

Bemba people, Kapozwa, (near the Kalambo Falls), Zambia. This composite musical instrument is made of a conventional water-pot and a three-legged stool. The pot is placed faced downwards on the ground and the stool placed over it so that the legs rub against it when turned. The pot resonates to produce a rasping sound. Similar instruments are played by the Mambwe, Lungu and Fipa peoples at festivals. ceremonies and beer parties. As is the case with most pottery instruments, these are played exclusively by women as a sort of counterpart to male drumming. H. 33 cm, w. 38 cm (pot); н. 21 cm, W. 28.5 cm (stool). Af1 981,2.80 a and b.”

[elhijoejuanamorales]

Earliest evidence of buildings made from wood is 476,000 years old | newscientist.com #archaeology #sedentarism #evolution

A flint was used to shape this log identified at the archaeological site Kalambo Falls in ZambiaLarry Barham, University of Liverpool “Colin Barras – 20 September 2023 Ancient humans were building large wooden structures – possibly houses – almost half a million years ago. The discovery, the earliest evidence of wooden construction, suggests that some ancient communities were far less nomadic…