{"id":592046,"date":"2023-09-20T18:40:20","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T15:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/half-million-year-old-wooden-structure-unearthed-in-zambia\/"},"modified":"2023-09-20T18:40:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T15:40:20","slug":"half-million-year-old-wooden-structure-unearthed-in-zambia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/half-million-year-old-wooden-structure-unearthed-in-zambia\/","title":{"rendered":"#Half-million-year-old wooden structure unearthed in Zambia"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_85 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-custom ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Table of Contents<\/p>\n<label for=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a37a6b4b6f1b\" class=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-label\"><span class=\"\"><span class=\"eztoc-hide\" style=\"display:none;\">Toggle<\/span><span class=\"ez-toc-icon-toggle-span\"><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" class=\"list-377408\" width=\"20px\" height=\"20px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" fill=\"none\"><path d=\"M6 6H4v2h2V6zm14 0H8v2h12V6zM4 11h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2zM4 16h2v2H4v-2zm16 0H8v2h12v-2z\" fill=\"currentColor\"><\/path><\/svg><svg style=\"fill: #dd3333;color:#dd3333\" class=\"arrow-unsorted-368013\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" width=\"10px\" height=\"10px\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.2\" baseProfile=\"tiny\"><path d=\"M18.2 9.3l-6.2-6.3-6.2 6.3c-.2.2-.3.4-.3.7s.1.5.3.7c.2.2.4.3.7.3h11c.3 0 .5-.1.7-.3.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7zM5.8 14.7l6.2 6.3 6.2-6.3c.2-.2.3-.5.3-.7s-.1-.5-.3-.7c-.2-.2-.4-.3-.7-.3h-11c-.3 0-.5.1-.7.3-.2.2-.3.5-.3.7s.1.5.3.7z\"\/><\/svg><\/span><\/span><\/label><input type=\"checkbox\"  id=\"ez-toc-cssicon-toggle-item-6a37a6b4b6f1b\" checked aria-label=\"Toggle\" \/><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/half-million-year-old-wooden-structure-unearthed-in-zambia\/#Making_fire\" >Making fire<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/half-million-year-old-wooden-structure-unearthed-in-zambia\/#Luminescence_dating\" >Luminescence dating<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-3'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-3\" href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/half-million-year-old-wooden-structure-unearthed-in-zambia\/#Woodworking_tradition\" >Woodworking tradition<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_bbc_articles_618\/4147c51e779456f58304045a2af2a1e0\" alt=\"Professor Larry Barham (pictured, right) uncovering the wooden structure on the banks of the river\" data-uuid=\"4d62389c-e719-3a67-a1eb-c3493df61ec1\"><figcaption>Prof Larry Barham uncovering the wooden structure on the banks of the river<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The discovery of ancient wooden logs in the banks of a river in Zambia has changed archaeologists&#8217; understanding of ancient human life.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Researchers found evidence the wood had been used to build a structure almost half a million years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The findings, <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-i13n=\"cpos:1;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41586-023-06557-9\">published in the journal Nature<\/a>, suggest stone-age people built what may have been shelters.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This find has changed how I think about our early ancestors,&#8221; archaeologist Prof Larry Barham said.<\/p>\n<p>The University of Liverpool scientist leads the Deep Roots of Humanity research project, which excavated and analysed the ancient timber.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The discovery could transform the current belief ancient humans led simple, nomadic lives.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They made something new, and large, from wood,&#8221; Prof Barham said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They used their intelligence, imagination and skills to create something they&#8217;d never seen before, something that had never previously existed.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The researchers also uncovered ancient wooden tools, including digging sticks. But what excited them most were two pieces of wood found at right angles to each other.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;One is lying over the other and both pieces of wood have notches cut into them,&#8221; University of Aberystwyth archaeologist Prof Geoff Duller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You can clearly see those notches have been cut by stone tools.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It makes the two logs fit together to become structural objects.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Making_fire\"><\/span>Making fire<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>Further analysis confirmed the logs were about 476,000 years old.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Team member Perrice Nkombwe, from the Livingstone Museum, in Zambia, said: &#8220;I was amazed to know that woodworking was such a deep-rooted tradition.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It dawned on me that we had uncovered something extraordinary.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Until now, evidence for the human use of wood has been limited to making fire and crafting tools such as digging sticks and spears.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Luminescence_dating\"><\/span>Luminescence dating<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>One of the oldest wooden discoveries was a 400,000-year-old spear in prehistoric sands at Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, in 1911.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Unless it is preserved in very specific conditions, wood simply rots away.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>But in the meandering riverbanks above the Kalambo Falls, close to the Zambia-Tanzania border, it was waterlogged and essentially pickled for millennia.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The team measured the age of layers of earth in which it was buried, using luminescence dating.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Grains of rock absorb natural radioactivity from the environment over time &#8211; essentially charging up like tiny batteries, as Prof Duller put it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And that radioactivity can be released and measured by heating up the grains and analysing the light emitted.\u00a0<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_bbc_articles_618\/6d345568827af0019398ace11c637a13\" alt=\"Scientists created models to show how the interlocking, structural logs could have been used\" data-uuid=\"03a9b2f2-67cf-335d-9876-80b69c9f8160\"><figcaption>Scientists created models to show how overl<a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/download-scripts-themes-apps\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"9\" title=\"Download Scripts &amp; Themes &amp; Apps\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">app<\/a>ing logs could have been used<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The size of the two logs, the smaller of which is about 1.5m (5ft), suggests whoever fitted them together was building something substantial.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Unlikely to have been a hut or permanent dwelling, it could have formed part of a platform for a shelter, the team says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It might be some sort of structure to sit beside the river and fish,&#8221; Prof Duller said:.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But it&#8217;s hard to tell what sort of [complete] structure it might have been.&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/aol_bbc_articles_618\/bc60105d44019aff8baa7ed4a787ac0f\" alt=\"An archaeologist gathers samples of sediment from the riverbank: The ancient wood was preserved in riverbed sediments\" data-uuid=\"6e07051f-3835-3da4-aee6-9000e887f06c\"><figcaption>The ancient wood was preserved in riverbed sediments<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>It is also unclear what species of ancient human &#8211; or hominid &#8211; built it.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>No bones have been found at this site so far.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And the timber is much older than <a rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-i13n=\"cpos:2;pos:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/nature.2017.22114\">the earliest modern human &#8211; or Homo sapien &#8211; fossils, which are about 315,000 years old<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<h3><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Woodworking_tradition\"><\/span>Woodworking tradition<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h3>\n<p>&#8220;It could have been <em>Homo sapiens<\/em> and we just haven&#8217;t discovered fossils from that age yet,&#8221; Prof Duller said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But it could be a different species &#8211; <em>Homo erectus<\/em> or <em>Homo naledi<\/em> &#8211; there were a number of hominid species around at that time in southern Africa.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Transported to the UK for analysis and preservation, the wooden artefacts are being stored in tanks that mimic the waterlogging that preserved them so beautifully for the last half-million years. But they will soon return to Zambia to be displayed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With this discovery, we hope to enrich our collection and use the finds to inform the interpretation of the woodworking tradition in Zambia,&#8221; Ms Nkombwe said.<\/p>\n<p>Continuing the work at the Kalambo Falls site, she added, &#8220;has the potential to deepen our knowledge of ancient woodworking techniques, craftsmanship, and human interactions with the environment&#8221;.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">If you liked the article, do not forget to share it with your friends. Follow us on\u00a0<span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><a style=\"color: #ff0000;\" href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/publications\/CAAqBwgKMLG0nwswvr63Aw\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">Google News<\/a><\/span>\u00a0too, click on the star and choose us from your favorites.<\/span><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">For forums sites go to <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/forum.buradabiliyorum.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Forum.BuradaBiliyorum.Com<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong>If you want to read more <a href=\"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/category\/news\/\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"2\" title=\"News\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News<\/a> articles, you can visit our <span style=\"color: #ff9900;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/news\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">News category.<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span style=\"color: black;\"><a style=\"color: #ff9900;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-66846772?xtor=AL-72-%5Bpartner%5D-%5Byahoo.north.america%5D-%5Bheadline%5D-%5Bnews%5D-%5Bbizdev%5D-%5Bisapi%5D\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Prof Larry Barham uncovering the wooden structure on the banks of the river The discovery of ancient wooden logs in the banks of a river in Zambia has changed archaeologists&#8217; understanding of ancient human life.\u00a0 Researchers found evidence the wood had been used to build a structure almost half a million years ago.\u00a0 The findings,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":592047,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/F2DC\/production\/_131127126_mediaitem131121309.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[70897],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-592046","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592046","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=592046"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/592046\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/592047"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=592046"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=592046"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=592046"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}