‘Extraordinary’ structure has no real parallel in the archaeological record, scientists say

[Napoleon]

Archaeologists have unearthed the oldest known wooden structure, and it’s almost half a million years old.

The simple structure — found along a riverbank in Zambia — is made up of two interlocking logs, with a notch deliberately crafted into the upper piece to allow them to fit together at right angles, according to a new study of cut marks made by stone tools.

Geoff Duller, a professor of geography and Earth sciences at the University of Aberystwyth in the United Kingdom, was part of the team that made the discovery in 2019. He said the structure, excavated upstream of Kalambo Falls near Zambia’s border with Tanzania, probably would have been part of a wooden platform used as a walkway, to keep food or firewood dry or perhaps as a base on which to build a dwelling. A digging stick and other wooden tools were found at the same site.

Apparently we, or one of our cousins, were building things 500,000. Cool discovery.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/africa/oldest-wooden-structure-zambia-scn/index.html

 

[LouC]

Super cool!

Thanks for posting!

 

[tshade]

Apparently we, or one of our cousins, were building things 500,000. Cool discovery.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/africa/oldest-wooden-structure-zambia-scn/index.html

A pre-historic genius-------too bad we will never know their names...........great news

 

[AmNat]

Apparently we, or one of our cousins, were building things 500,000. Cool discovery.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/20/africa/oldest-wooden-structure-zambia-scn/index.html

On what basis is it claimed that this thing is 500,000 years old?

 

[Mircea]

Apparently we, or one of our cousins, were building things 500,000. Cool discovery.

It was neither.

A pre-historic genius-------too bad we will never know their names...........great news

We do know their names.

If you want to know their names, then you need only read Sumerian texts translated and published in various archaeology journals like the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Journal of the Ancient Near East, the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Antiquity, and others.

If you do read them, you will see how the Greeks erred in translating a particular word as "underworld" which later morphed into "Hell." Since the early Greeks believed in a flat Earth, they could not comprehend that something "down under" was actually down under the equator.

Equally unfortunate is the fact that the Greeks did not have access to Sumerian texts we have now, so had they read that this king or that king had made ships from this "underworld" laden with gold moor at his ports, they might have realized it was not a mythical place.

Had they read other texts which describe this "underworld" as a land with gold and having a great river flowing out of the mountains to the sea" -- which by the way is a perfect description of the Zambesi River -- they might have also realized it was not a mythical place.

 

[tshade]

It was neither.


We do know their names.

If you want to know their names, then you need only read Sumerian texts translated and published in various archaeology journals like the Oxford Journal of Archaeology, Near Eastern Archaeology, Journal of the Ancient Near East, the Cambridge Archaeological Journal, Antiquity, and others.

If you do read them, you will see how the Greeks erred in translating a particular word as "underworld" which later morphed into "Hell." Since the early Greeks believed in a flat Earth, they could not comprehend that something "down under" was actually down under the equator.

Equally unfortunate is the fact that the Greeks did not have access to Sumerian texts we have now, so had they read that this king or that king had made ships from this "underworld" laden with gold moor at his ports, they might have realized it was not a mythical place.

Had they read other texts which describe this "underworld" as a land with gold and having a great river flowing out of the mountains to the sea" -- which by the way is a perfect description of the Zambesi River -- they might have also realized it was not a mythical place.

??????????? There were no Sumerians 500,000 years ago. Nor any writing of any kind.

Now, yes, early wooden structures existing in the last 10,000 years or so..........sure.......

 

[Mircea]

On what basis is it claimed that this thing is 500,000 years old?

It is dated by luminescence to at least 476 ± 23 kyr ago.

Maybe you and tshade can work on the archaeological journals together.

The only redeeming value of the White Dutch overlords in South Africa is that:

1) in their quest for gold they employed lots and lots of archaeologists; and
2) those archaeologists found gold mines by hunting for pre-historic gold mines; and
3) the White Dutch overlords actually gave the archaeologists adequate time to excavate and examine those pre-historic mines and report and publish their findings archaeological journals.

The reason I'm telling you that is because those pre-historic gold mines date back to the same time period, which is 450,000 to 500,000 years ago and there's more than 100 archaeological reports attesting to that.

Why were people mining gold 450,000-500,000 years ago? Not entirely clear on that.

To me, this find is not even remotely shocking. I fully expected it. Not only did I fully expect it, I expect many other finds to be made now that people are interested in it since that region is sparsely populated and not archaeologically explored in depth.

 

[Mircea]

??????????? There were no Sumerians 500,000 years ago. Nor any writing of any kind.

I never said there was.

I said the Sumerians said there were people living and working there 450,000 years ago. To be clear, the Sumerians never said they were there. They said other people (not Sumerians) were there. It is because Sumerians knew other people were there mining gold that Sumerian kings sent workers to mine for gold and sent ships to bring that gold back to Sumer and that was 7,000 years ago circa 5000 BCE.

If you want to know how much gold they shipped back, you can fly to London and take the Tube to St Pancras/King's Cross and go to the British Museum and read the tablets yourself, or you can peruse the Journal of Assyriology or the Journal of the Ancient Near East and others. They used Base 60 and we're not entirely clear on their system of weights and measures.

The Egyptians knew about it, too. Right around 2500 BCE or so a couple of their ships apparently sunk in a storm. The Greeks and Romans didn't know anything about it, and the Greeks actually believed it was "Hell." Why? I don't know. You'd have to ask Berossus but seeing how he's dead we'd have to have a séance and honestly, I wouldn't mind because I'd really like to know what the hell Berossus was thinking.

 

[Somerville]

The complete academic paper may be read on Nature.com's website

Evidence for the earliest structural use of wood at least 476,000 years ago​

In the African context, indirect evidence for woodworking comes from use-wear traces and residues on Early Pleistocene stone tools in East Africa (Oldowan, Acheulean)14,15,16. Actual wood objects are found in Mid-Pleistocene waterlogged deposits in southern Africa with Acheulean and Middle Stone Age tools. At Kalambo Falls, wood was recovered from Acheulean horizons in the 1950s–1960s (sites A and B), but taphonomic processes removed evidence of intentional shaping from most pieces17. A wood chip and three objects with transverse notches raised the possibility of intentional modification. Attempts to date the wood gave minimum ages18,19,20. At Amanzi Springs, South Africa, a single stick with a possible chop mark was reported from waterlogged Acheulean deposits excavated in the 1960s21. The deposits were radiometrically dated (approximately 404–390 kyr), with wood found in recent excavations but without evidence of modification10. The earliest clearly modified wood object, collected in 1952 from spring deposits at Florisbad, South Africa, was associated with Middle Stone Age tools and hominin remains (Homo helmei)22. The object’s tip shows cutmarks and fine striations23, but its location relative to dated deposits is uncertain24.

 

[Napoleon]

The Egyptians knew about it, too. Right around 2500 BCE or so a couple of their ships apparently sunk in a storm. The Greeks and Romans didn't know anything about it, and the Greeks actually believed it was "Hell." Why? I don't know. You'd have to ask Berossus but seeing how he's dead we'd have to have a séance and honestly, I wouldn't mind because I'd really like to know what the hell Berossus was thinking.

Ancient “gates of hell” are invariably located on or around fissures that emit large amounts of toxic gasses.

 

[Oozlefinch]

I said the Sumerians said there were people living and working there 450,000 years ago

Holy hell, lack of almost any understanding of history and human evolution!

450,000 years ago, there were no "Sumerians". In fact, there were not even any H. Sapiens, they would not even evolve for another 150 ky.

Welcome to the "Human Race", at around 450 kya.

Now notice, we are not even on the image. At the point in time you are talking about, H Heidelbergensis was the most advanced "human" on the planet. See H Neanderthal? They evolved at around the same time we did, around 100 kya after the time period you are trying to put Sumerians in. And "Cro-Magnon" is now a grouping that is believed to have never really existed. They were simply H. Sapiens that interbred with H. Neanderthals so became a separate species, but primarily following the H. Sapiens genetics.

But the people that lived there 450 kya? They are long ago dead, gone, extinct. No connection at all to the group that moved there from Africa around 5 kya.

 

[Napoleon]

450,000 years ago, there were no "Sumerians". In fact, there were not even any H. Sapiens, they would not even evolve for another 150 ky.

Now notice, we are not even on the image. At the point in time you are talking about, H Heidelbergensis was the most advanced "human" on the planet. See H Neanderthal? They evolved at around the same time we did..

No. Neanderthals and Denisovans have at least 100,000 years on Sapiens.

 

[Oozlefinch]

No. Neanderthals and Denisovans have at least 100,000 years on Sapiens.

Well, as I did not even mention Denisovan, whatever.

For Neanderthal, I actually meant to put in "10,000", as the oldest records of them are only around 435,000 years ago. So that is still before the mythical "450,000 year old Sumerians". If there were humanoids there, they were several species removed from us.