Two pieces of worked wood recovered from a prehistoric lakeshore in southern Greece have been identified as the oldest known handheld wooden tools made by hominins, dating to around 430,000 years ago. One appears to have been used as a digging or multipurpose stick, while the second is so small and unusual that researchers have not been able to assign it a definite function.
The artifacts were found at Marathousa 1, a Lower Paleolithic site in the Megalopolis Basin of the Peloponnese. Because wooden objects normally decay long before they can enter the archaeological record, the discovery provides an unusually direct glimpse of a part of early human technology that is almost always lost.
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), suggests that stone tools represent only one part of the technological repertoire used by early hominins. At Marathousa 1, wood, bone and stone appear to have been used alongside one another, revealing a more diverse approach to toolmaking than the surviving archaeological record usually allows researchers to see.
A rare survival from 430,000 years ago
Marathousa 1 was discovered in 2013 after fossil-bearing sediments were exposed by lignite mining in the Megalopolis Basin. Excavations carried out between 2013 and 2019 produced animal remains, more than 2,000 stone artifacts, worked bone, and an unusually rich collection of preserved plant material.
The archaeological horizon has been dated to approximately 430,000 years ago, during Marine Isotope Stage 12, one of the most severe glacial periods of the Pleistocene. Environmental evidence indicates that a permanent freshwater body remained in the basin, while open woodland and waterside vegetation survived under relatively cold conditions, allowing the region to function as a glacial microrefugium.
Those environmental conditions were also crucial to the preservation of the wooden artifacts. Rapid burial and waterlogged sediments limited exposure to oxygen, allowing organic material that would normally disappear within a comparatively short period to survive for hundreds of thousands of years.
Marathousa 1 has already been recognized as an important site for understanding early hominin behavior. Among the discoveries was a nearly complete skeleton of a straight-tusked elephant, Palaeoloxodon antiquus, whose bones carry cut marks and percussion damage consistent with butchery.
The elephant remains were found together with stone artifacts and other traces of hominin activity. Some of the wooden objects examined in the new study were recovered in direct association with this activity area, making it possible to investigate how wood may have been incorporated into the broader technological system used at the site.
Two tools identified among 144 pieces of wood
An international research team led by Annemieke Milks and Katerina Harvati systematically examined 144 wooden remains excavated between 2015 and 2019. Morphological, microscopic, taxonomic, and taphonomic analyses were used to distinguish deliberate human modification from damage caused by burial, animals, or natural processes.
Two specimens were ultimately classified as wooden artifacts, although the level of certainty differed between them. The larger object was assigned to Category 1, indicating clear evidence of human modification, while the much smaller specimen was classified as a likely Category 2 wooden tool.
The first artifact was made from a small alder trunk and survives as four refitting fragments. When reconstructed, it measures approximately 81 centimeters in length and up to 4.5 centimeters in diameter, although its original dimensions were altered by compression beneath thick layers of sediment.
Carving, chopping, and stop marks were identified around knots and branches, showing that the trunk had been deliberately shaped. Wear concentrated toward one end, including fraying and microscopic splintering, suggests that the tool had been repeatedly used rather than simply modified and discarded.
Its precise function cannot be established with certainty, but its shape is consistent with a digging or multipurpose stick. It may have been used in soft lakeshore sediments, although the researchers also considered other possibilities, including bark processing or activities connected with the nearby elephant carcass.
A tiny wooden tool unlike anything known from the period
The second artifact presents a more difficult problem. Made from willow or poplar, it measures only 5.7 centimeters long, making it exceptionally small compared with most known wooden tools from the Pleistocene.
The object had been debarked and shaped, and researchers identified probable tool facets, scraping marks, and the deliberate removal of growth rings from both sides near one end. The opposite end also preserves rounding, pitting and small splinter negatives that may represent wear produced during use.
Because of its size, the object may have been held between the fingers rather than gripped like a larger stick. The researchers describe it as a new type of wooden artifact, and no secure functional interpretation has yet been established.
One possibility is that it was used in the manufacture or retouching of small stone tools. Numerous lithic chips and pieces of debitage were found in the same area, and other evidence from Marathousa 1 indicates that organic materials formed part of the technological repertoire used by the hominins living there.
The uncertainty surrounding the artifact may be as important as the object itself. Archaeological research has traditionally been better equipped to recognize larger wooden implements such as spears and digging sticks, while a tool only a few centimeters long could easily be overlooked or dismissed as an unmodified fragment.
Earlier worked wood is known, but the distinction matters
The Marathousa finds are not the oldest evidence of hominins working wood. At Kalambo Falls in Zambia, large interlocking wooden elements dating to at least 476,000 years ago have been interpreted as part of a structure, providing evidence that wood was being shaped for construction tens of thousands of years before the Greek artifacts were made.
A possible polished wooden object from Gesher Benot Ya’aqov in Israel has been dated to around 780,000 years ago, although the study notes that the specimen has not been reassessed using modern analytical methods. The distinction at Marathousa 1 is therefore not the earliest known working of wood, but the earliest securely identified handheld wooden tools.
Previously known handheld wooden artifacts include finds from Kalambo Falls dating between roughly 390,000 and 324,000 years ago, as well as assemblages from Schöningen in Germany and Poggetti Vecchi in Italy. At about 430,000 years old, the Marathousa artifacts extend the known history of this particular form of technology and provide the first evidence of its kind from southeastern Europe.
Carnivore claw marks reveal another side of the site
The same waterlogged deposits also preserved a larger alder trunk fragment bearing several deep, roughly parallel grooves. After trampling, insect damage and stone-tool modification were considered and rejected, the marks were interpreted as fossilized claw traces produced by a large carnivore.
The exact animal responsible cannot be identified, although bears, lions and possibly leopards are known from other Middle Pleistocene localities in the Megalopolis Basin. Their presence provides further context for a landscape in which hominins were not the only large animals competing for access to food and other resources.
Evidence from the elephant remains supports that interpretation. Butchery marks indicate that hominins had access to the carcass, while carnivore damage on animal bones shows that predators also visited or exploited carcasses in the broader environment.
A technological world largely erased by decay
The significance of the Marathousa discovery extends beyond a new chronological record. Paleolithic archaeology is dominated by stone because stone survives, whereas wood, bark, fibers, and many other organic materials usually disappear completely.
The larger Marathousa tool was shaped relatively simply, with branches removed and only limited modification of the trunk. The smaller artifact preserves even more subtle traces, demonstrating how easily similar objects could have escaped recognition at other sites with good organic preservation.
Taken together with worked bone and evidence that stone tools were used to process plant materials, the wooden artifacts suggest that early hominins at Marathousa 1 were exploiting several raw materials for different technological purposes. Their equipment may therefore have been considerably more varied than the surviving stone record alone would suggest.
The two wooden tools offer a rare view into that missing material culture. What survived in the waterlogged sediments of the Megalopolis Basin indicates that, 430,000 years ago, wood was already being deliberately selected, shaped and used in ways that ranged from large handheld implements to tiny tools whose purpose remains unresolved.
A. Milks, M. Ntinou, S. Koutalis, D. Michailidis, G.E. Konidaris, D. Giusti, N. Thompson, G. Tsartsidou, E. Panagopoulou, V. Tourloukis, P. Karkanas, & K. Harvati, Evidence for the earliest hominin use of wooden handheld tools found at Marathousa 1 (Greece), Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 123 (6) e2515479123, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2515479123 (2026).
