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These ancient whittled logs could be the earliest known wooden structure

Stacked timbers dated to roughly 476,000 years ago show that ancient hominins worked with wood.
  1. Ewen Callaway
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Some 500,000 years ago in central Africa, ancient human relatives chopped down trees and transformed the wood into digging tools, wedges and what might just be the world’s earliest-known wooden structure.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-023-02928-4

Read the related News & Views, ‘Hominins built with wood 476,000 years ago’.

References

  1. Barham, L. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06557-9 (2023).

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