Initially, the discovery didn’t appear noteworthy—a log positioned horizontally atop another log.

“It didn’t look particularly exciting,” says Larry Barham, professor of archaeology at the University of Liverpool. “But when you look closely and you remove the sand around it, you can see where one sits on top of the other is a notch.”

This notch provided a crucial clue that these logs had been manipulated by human beings—extraordinarily ancient individuals who once frequented this site, located above the striking 772-foot Kalambo Falls in Zambia.

Subsequent examination of the logs uncovered distinctive indications of having been cut, hewn, and shaped using human tools, NPR reported.

“This thing was an intended component. It was, in a sense, engineered,” says Barham.

“To interpret this, I drew on my childhood experience with a toy called Lincoln Logs,” he says, “and the notches which allow you to pile up and make a log cabin. And the Lincoln Logs really, really helped.”

This observation led Barham to propose that these logs might have originally served as a platform or formed the foundation of a structure.

If proven true, this site could represent an astonishingly ancient instance of human beings engaging in wood construction, dating back approximately 476,000 years.

Written by staff