UoR help discover earliest evidence of wooden tools used by humans
Objects representing the oldest hand-held wooden tools ever found
Last updated 27th Jan 2026
An international team led by researchers partially from the University of Reading, has discovered the earliest known hand-held wooden tools used by humans.
A study jointly led by Professor Katerina Harvati from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Dr Annemieke Milks at University of Reading describes discoveries from the Marathousa 1 site in Greece’s central Peloponnese which date back 430,000 years.
Published in the journal PNAS, the finds consist of two objects crafted and used by humans, one made of alder wood and the other of willow or poplar. The objects represent the oldest hand-held wooden tools ever found, pushing back evidence of this type of tool use by at least 40,000 years.
Other finds of stone tools and the remains of an elephant and other animals indicate that the site, once on the shore of a lake, was used for butchering animals. The site was used by early humans around 430,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene – the period from around 774,000 to 129,000 years ago.
Worked stones and bone artefacts from the site highlighted the skill and diverse activities of the people who once lived there, so the research team took a closer look at the associated finds made of wood.
“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."
Meticulous
The research team identified two wooden artefacts that had been worked by humans: a small piece of an alder trunk shows clear signs of having been shaped as well as signs of wear and tear. The stick was probably used for digging at the edge of the lake, or for removing tree bark. A second, very small piece of wood from a willow or poplar tree shows signs of working and possible signs of use.
A third find – a larger piece of alder trunk with a groove pattern – had been clawed by a large carnivore, possibly a bear, and not shaped by humans, the researchers concluded.
“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 1”, 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.