430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools Are the Oldest Ever Found – The New York Times

Researchers publishing in late January 2026 report two discoveries that push back the record for early hominin use of organic materials: a set of wooden implements dated to about 430,000 years ago from the Marathousa 1 site in southern Greece, and a roughly 500,000-year-old hammer fashioned from elephant or mammoth bone found in southern England. Both finds were recovered from former coal-mine deposits and are described in papers appearing in PNAS and Science Advances. Investigators say the artifacts—alongside associated stone tools and animal remains—suggest that pre-sapiens hominins in Europe manufactured and used organic tools far earlier than previously documented.

Key Takeaways

• Wooden implements from Marathousa 1 in southern Greece are dated to about 430,000 years ago and include a worked alder shard likely used for digging and a carved poplar/willow twig used as a tool.
• A separate find in southern England consists of a hammer made from elephant or mammoth bone dated to roughly 500,000 years ago, reported in Science Advances.
• Both sets of artifacts were recovered from deep layers in former coal-mining contexts and were associated with stone tools and faunal remains including a straight-tusked elephant at Marathousa 1.
• Authors attribute the objects to early Neanderthals or the preceding species Homo heidelbergensis, but direct species assignment remains inferential rather than confirmed.
• The Marathousa 1 assemblage sits within the Middle Pleistocene interval (approximately 478,000–424,000 years ago), consistent with the radiometric and stratigraphic framework reported by the teams.
• These finds complement, and in one case predate, earlier reports—most notably 2019 carved timbers from Kalambo Falls, Zambia (about 476,000 years old)—and alter timelines for organic-tool manufacture in prehistoric Europe.

Background

Organic artifacts—tools made from wood, bone or plant fiber—are underrepresented in the archaeological record because they decay more rapidly than stone. Preservation is therefore exceptional and depends on local conditions such as waterlogging, burial in anoxic sediments, or rapid mineral replacement. Coal-mine contexts, where woody debris can become buried and sealed, sometimes provide the chemical and physical conditions needed to preserve fragile organic objects for hundreds of thousands of years.

Before these reports, the clearest evidence for very early intentional wood working included the 2019 Kalambo Falls timbers in Zambia, dated to about 476,000 years ago, thought to be structural timbers forming part of a platform or dwelling. In Europe, stone artifacts dominate older assemblages and shape narratives about hominin behavior; organic artifacts can change that story by revealing wider choices of raw material and technique.

Main Event

At Marathousa 1, a former lakeshore in the Megalopolis basin of southern Greece, archaeologists recovered dozens of wood fragments embedded in a deep Middle Pleistocene deposit. Among these, two pieces show clear modification: an alder shard with worked edges interpreted as a digging implement, and a carved twig of poplar or willow that bears use-wear consistent with a tool. The linear context also included the partial skeleton of a straight-tusked elephant and bones of turtles, birds, rodents and hippopotamuses, as well as stone tools interpreted as butchering implements.

Separately, researchers reported a large bone hammer—made from elephant or mammoth long bone—excavated from a deep deposit in southern England and dated to about 500,000 years ago. The hammer’s morphology and percussion damage led the team to interpret it as an intentional tool for heavy-duty pounding or breaking tasks, complementary to contemporaneous stone-tool technology.

Both research teams published their analyses in respected peer-reviewed venues: the wooden-tools study in PNAS and the bone-hammer study in Science Advances. Lead authors include Katerina Harvati (University of Tübingen) for the wooden artifacts and Silvia Bello (Natural History Museum, London) among the authors on the bone hammer paper. Field stratigraphy, taphonomy and multiple dating approaches are reported as the basis for the age estimates.

Analysis & Implications

The presence of worked wood and heavy bone hammers at these ages suggests hominins in Europe were experimenting with a broader toolkit than stone alone. That has implications for interpretations of mobility, resource selection and seasonal behavior: wood and bone tools are often site-specific, sourced and shaped where needed, indicating local planning and material knowledge.

Cognitively, crafting and using organic tools requires a set of skills—material recognition, shaping, sustained effort and the anticipation of tool function—that reinforce hypotheses of complex behavior well before Homo sapiens spread into Europe. However, the degree to which these behaviors were standardized across regions remains an open question; isolated examples do not by themselves demonstrate continent-wide technological traditions.

Economically and ecologically, the finds imply hominins were exploiting large fauna (elephant remains at Marathousa 1) and local woody resources for tasks such as digging, processing hides, or plant extraction. If bone hammers and dug implements were routine, they could alter assumptions about how prehistoric hominins obtained and processed food, created shelters, or produced composite tools.

Comparison & Data

The table places the new European finds in context with the Kalambo Falls timbers. Taken together, the data indicate repeated episodes of organic-tool manufacture in different regions during the Middle Pleistocene, although preservation biases mean many behaviors likely remain invisible in the record.

Reactions & Quotes

Researchers involved in the studies highlighted the significance while noting limits to interpretation.

“These objects give us a rare window into the material choices and skills of Middle Pleistocene hominins,” the lead author on the wooden-tools paper said, stressing that the finds inform hypotheses about cognitive evolution.

Katerina Harvati, University of Tübingen (lead author, PNAS paper)

“The bone hammer shows intentional shaping for a heavy-duty function and complements the stone-tool record in England,” a co-author of the bone-hammer study commented, urging cautious integration with existing lithic datasets.

Silvia Bello, Natural History Museum, London (co-author, Science Advances paper)

Unconfirmed

• The exact function of the wooden implements remains uncertain; use-wear suggests digging and handling but other tasks cannot be excluded.
• Species attribution (early Neanderthals vs. Homo heidelbergensis) is inferred from date and region rather than direct skeletal association in all cases.
• The geographic extent and frequency of organic-tool use in the Middle Pleistocene remain unclear due to preservation bias; isolated finds do not yet reveal how common such behavior was.

Bottom Line

These reports extend the earliest secure evidence for intentionally made organic tools in Europe to about 430,000–500,000 years ago. The finds do not overturn the central role of stone technology in Pleistocene archaeology, but they do broaden our view of the materials and techniques available to pre-sapiens hominins and underscore that complex, context-dependent toolkits existed long before Homo sapiens expanded into Europe.

Future work—targeted surveys of depositional contexts that favor organic preservation, more extensive use-wear and residue analyses, and better stratigraphic linkage between tools and hominin remains—will be essential to determine whether these objects represent isolated local innovations or evidence of wider behavioral patterns across Pleistocene Eurasia.

Sources

• The New York Times (news report summarizing the studies)
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) (academic journal; wooden-tools paper)
• Science Advances (academic journal; bone-hammer paper)