Archaeologists in Zambia discover world’s oldest wooden structure

Archaeologists have discovered the oldest known wooden structure made by the hands of a human ancestor, and it is nearly 500,000 years old. The researchers were working near Zambia’s Kalambo Falls when they stumbled upon the simple wooden structure which they said suggests people who made it were cognitively sophisticated.

About the discovery

The study about the discovery was published on Wednesday (September 20) in the journal Nature which details the wooden objects that the researchers unearthed.

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The wooden structure found is made up of two interlocking logs of a large-fruited willow tree with a notch deliberately crafted into the upper piece to allow them to fit together at right angles around 476,000 years ago, said the researchers.

The oldest wooden structure, before the announcement out of Zambia, was just 9,000 years old. Meanwhile, the oldest known wooden artefact which was discovered in Israel, is said to be a 780,000-year-old fragment of plank.

The latest discovery was made at Kalambo Falls, on Lake Tanganyika in northern Zambia near the border with Tanzania, a site which has been investigated by scientists since the 1950s.

As per the recent study, researchers, in addition to the world’s oldest wooden structure also found stone tools below the river, three of which were covered in clay deposits above the river level.

It is also worth noting that these wooden artefacts survived hundreds of thousands of years due to the permanently elevated water table since the structure was discovered in 2019 above a 235-metre-high (770-foot) waterfall on the banks of the Zambian river.

What does the discovery suggest?

While scientists are not sure what the wooden structure was used for, they believe it to be a part of a wooden platform used as a walkway, to keep food or firewood dry. It could also be used as a base to build a shelter since researchers also found a digging stick and other wooden tools at the same site.

“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,” Larry Barham, an archaeologist from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom told AFP.

Scientists have also noted in the study that the interlocking logs have “no known parallels” in the African or Eurasian Palaeolithic.” The recent discovery also pushes back the dates of the earliest examples of woodworking predating the emergence of our own species, Homo sapiens.

The earliest evidence of Homo sapiens is from around 300,000 years ago. The discovery has “changed how I thought about these people,” Barham told AFP, adding that 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 added, “They used their intelligence, imagination and skills to create something they'd never seen before, something that had never previously existed.” This also suggests an abstract level of thinking and “probably language,” said Barham.

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