Wooden structure remnants from 5 lakh years ago have been found in Zambia

In Zambia, a landlocked nation in South-Central Africa, a group of archaeologists unearthed a surprising find. At the Kalambo Falls archaeological site in Zambia, wooden constructions dating back 5,000 years have been discovered. These woodworks are said to be among the earliest examples of carpentry work that have survived to this day.

The wooden constructions, which resemble weapons, were fashioned from two logs using stone tools. This finding shows that people have been using wood to make diverse tools for a very long period. This demonstrates the technical sophistication and wandering lifestyle of Stone Age people. The Nature Journal has provided further information on this study.

The potential structure, which may have been an elevated platform, a shelter, or something else different, cannot be identified with certainty by researchers. Regardless of identity, it existed more than 100,000 years before Homo sapiens evolved. Some users may be unsure whether to classify these tools as belonging to the stone period or the wooden age. In the Nature Journal, archaeologist Larry Barham said, “We would probably use the term wood age rather than stone age.” One of the people involved in this study is Larry.

The British archaeologist J Desmond Clark and his crew conducted the first excavations at Kalambo Falls in the 1950s and 1960s as well. They discovered stone tools, potential tool-making materials made of wood, and a large wooden item that was likely a component of a building. They didn’t know how old the wooden artefacts were or whether or not hominins had built them. The category that includes all of our close relatives as well as extinct human species as hominins. Members of the genus Homo, Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and Ardipithecus are among the direct ancestors.

Early in the new millennium, Larry and his group returned to Kalambo Falls. They sought to find additional stone tools and date the location using contemporary methods. The Nature Journal quoted Larry as saying, “We didn’t expect to find wood.” Surprisingly, wood was found on the first day of an excavation in 2019. The scientists down a hill to the Kalambo River’s beaches where they came upon a piece of wood sticking out of a rock wall.