We Homo sapiens are very proud of our tool-making prowess. From smartphones to the humble but powerful wheel, our ability to create objects that help us achieve our goals is something we have often thought defines us as a species. But tens of thousands of years ago, Homo sapiens weren’t the only humans with a vast arsenal of tools. In a recent excavation at an important Neanderthal site in Barcelona, Abric Romaní, archaeologists have unearthed a huge cache of wooden footprints, several of which appear to be tools. The findings, recently published in Science Advances, suggest that our extinct Paleolithic relatives were actually skilled and prolific carpenters. Of the 597 wooden footprints the team discovered, 13 are clearly modified tools and other household objects. One of the most interesting objects identified was a wooden club, which appears to have been deliberately shaped to hit things. It’s reminiscent of the classic “caveman” costume, but archaeologists have never seen anything like it in the prehistoric record. Photograph of the mace-shaped impression. (MD Guillén/IPHES) “To date, only one possible example has been reported at Kalambo Falls (Zambia), dated approximately 400 years ago,” write Palmira Saladié and a team of researchers from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES). the limited comparative record and documented functional variability among recent hunter-gatherers. “The team also found structural posts that may have been used as shelter; a tripod; some pointed wooden objects that may be digging sticks; and two spears. Pointed objects identified throughout the excavation. (MD Guillén/IPHES) They believe four charred bark objects may have been used as trays or containers for food. It is not the first evidence that Neanderthals may have made tools from wood, but it is possibly the collection of more detailed and extensive specimens. In 1995, wooden weapons dating back 300,000 years were found in Germany, and in 2018, an article described 171,000-year-old wooden tools found in Tuscany, Italy. that wooden tools are preserved than those made of stone, for example, due to their organic quality: wood decomposes easily. Archaeologists at Abric Romaní found traces of hundreds of wooden artifacts. (Gerard Campeny/IPHES-CERCA)But at Abric Romaní, traces of wooden artifacts are preserved in layers of limestone. Although the wood disappeared long ago, calcium carbonate accumulated around the wood before it rotted. This mineral mold left a negative imprint of the tool that survived the millennia. In some cases, these imprints are so clear that researchers can see details down to the cellular level, which is how they know they are looking at traces of wood. “Wood technology probably played a key role in human evolution, yet it remains poorly documented because organic materials are rarely preserved in archaeological contexts,” Saladié and his team note. The research has been published in Science Advances. This article was fact-checked by Fiona MacDonald and edited by Fiona MacDonald. While we take pride in our process, we are human. If you spot an error, please let us know.
