Scientists Discover 430,000-Year-Old Wooden Tools, Rewriting Human History

An international research team from Germany, the UK, and Greece has found evidence that wooden tools were used in Greece 430,000 years ago.

An international collaboration involving researchers from the Universities of Tübingen and Reading and the Senckenberg Nature Research Society has identified what are now considered the earliest known hand-held wooden tools used by humans.

The study, led by Professor Katerina Harvati from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Dr. Annemieke Milks at the University of Reading, focuses on discoveries made at the Marathousa 1 site in the central Peloponnese region of Greece. The findings date back approximately 430,000 years.

Discovery pushes back tool timeline

Reported in the journal PNAS, the discoveries include two wooden objects shaped and used by early humans. One is made from alder wood, while the other comes from willow or poplar. These items are now recognized as the oldest hand-held wooden tools ever identified, extending the known timeline of this type of technology by at least 40,000 years.

Additional evidence from the site, including stone tools and the remains of an elephant and other animals, suggests the location once served as a lakeside butchering area. Early humans occupied the site around 430,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene – the period from around 774,000 to 129,000 years ago.

“The Middle Pleistocene was a critical phase in human evolution, during which more complex behaviors developed. The earliest reliable evidence of the targeted technological use of plants also dates from this period,” says Professor Katerina Harva-ti, a paleoanthropologist and expert in human evolution, who leads the long-term research program at Marathousa 1.

Microscopic analysis reveals human craftsmanship

Finds of shaped stone and bone tools had already demonstrated the range of activities carried out by the people who lived at the site, prompting the research team to examine preserved wooden fragments in greater detail.

“Unlike stones, wooden objects need special conditions to survive over long periods of time,” says Dr Annemieke Milks, a leading expert in early wooden tools. “We examined all the wooden remains closely, looking at their surfaces under microscopes. We found marks from chopping and carving on two objects – clear signs that early humans had shaped them.”

Through this analysis, the team confirmed that two wooden pieces had been modified and used by humans. One fragment, taken from an alder trunk, shows both shaping marks and signs of wear, suggesting it may have been used for digging near the lake or for stripping bark.

A second, much smaller fragment made from willow or poplar also displays signs of working and possible use. In contrast, a third piece of alder wood featuring a grooved pattern was determined to have been marked by a large carnivore, possibly a bear, rather than by human activity.

Evidence challenges global record of tools

“The oldest wooden tools come from places such as the United Kingdom, Zambia, Germany, and China and include weapons, digging sticks, and tool handles. However, they are all more recent than our finds from Marathousa 1m,” Annemieke Milks says. There is only one older piece of evidence of wood used by humans, from the Kalambo Falls site in Zambia, dating to around 476,000 years ago. Yet that wood was used not as a tool but as structural material.

“We have discovered the oldest wooden tools known to date, as well as the first evidence of this kind from southeastern Europe,” Harvati says. “This shows once again how exceptionally good the conditions at the Marathousa 1 site are for preservation. And the fact that large carnivores left their mark near the butchered elephant alongside human activity indicates fierce competition between the two.”

Reference: “Evidence for the earliest hominin use of wooden handheld tools found at Marathousa 1 (Greece)” by Annemieke Milks, Maria Ntinou, Stylianos Koutalis, Dimitrios Michailidis, George E. Konidaris, Domenico Giusti, Nicholas Thompson, Georgia Tsartsidou, Eleni Panagopoulou, Vangelis Tourloukis, Panagiotis Karkanas and Katerina Harvati, 26 January 2026, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2515479123

Research on the Marathousa 1 finds is funded by the European Research Council and the German Science Foundation.

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