---
title: "Scientists Find Structure From Before Homo Sapiens Existed"
description: "Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest extant evidence of a wood structure, dating back almost half a million years."
date: "2023-10-14"
modified: "2023-10-14"
authors:
  - name: "Sharon Adarlo"
    job_title: "Correspondent"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/sadarlo"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/scientists-find-structure-before-homo-sapiens"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "archaeology"
  - "kalambo falls"
  - "the digest"
  - "zambia"
---

# Scientists Find Structure From Before Homo Sapiens Existed

![Archaeologists have uncovered the earliest extant evidence of a wood structure, dating back almost half a million years.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/scientists-find-structure-before-homo-sapiens.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Larry Barham, University of Liverpool\</em\>*

## Wood Deeds

Archaeologists from Europe and Africa have uncovered the oldest wood structure ever discovered, dating back almost half a million years — meaning an unknown species of [hominins](<https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/whats-in-a-name-hominid-versus-hominin-216054/>), predating us homo sapiens, was presumably responsible for its creation.

The researchers laid out their findings in a [recent paper in the science journal *Nature*](<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06557-9#author-information>), where they reported that they had found the wood structure of "two interlocking logs joined transversely by an intentionally cut notch" at a site in Kalambo Falls, Zambia, and dated it to a distant 476,000 years ago. At the same location, which the scientists say was likely the foundation for a dwelling or platform, they also found four tools fashioned from wood: a digging stick, a cut log, a wedge, and notched branch, each also dating to before the time of modern humans.

"This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors," said University of Liverpool archaeology professor and the paper's lead author Larry Barham in a [statement](<https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1001825>). "Forget the label ‘Stone Age,’ look at what these people were doing: they made something new, and large, from wood. They used their intelligence, imagination, and skills to create something they’d never seen before, something that had never previously existed."

## Handy Man

The wood was preserved because Kalambo Falls kept the pieces permanently waterlogged, hence sealing them away [from oxygen and oxygen-dependant bacteria that would degrade them](<https://www.mola.org.uk/blog/waterlogged-wood>). The finding is particularly significantbecause wood has rarely been preserved from the [Early Stone Age](<https://www.britannica.com/event/Stone-Age>) **—** offering an ultra-rare peek into the lives of our distant ancestors.

Besides the exciting discovery of the wooden objects themselves, the researcher said that the finding paints a more complex picture of their lives; that these hominins were perhaps not nomadic and instead spent a sustained period of time living in the area, long enough to make a structure from the surrounding forests and draw fresh water from the falls.

These early hominins weren't the only ones attracted to the locale. Kalambo Falls later became a site for homo sapien occupation, and a rich treasure trove of archaeological findings from the Stone Age and onward. Its significance is so great that it's even being considered as a [UNESCO World Heritage Site](<https://whc.unesco.org/en/tentativelists/5426/>).

Surely the discovery the oldest wooden man-made structure should vault it to the official list, cementing its importance to our understanding of human evolution.

**More on early man:** [*Pre-Human Species Carved Symbols More Than 200,000 Years Ago*](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/pre-human-species-carved-symbols>)