A new study in Science reveals that early humans in southwest China used wooden tools as far back as 300,000 years ago, marking the first such discovery at a Palaeolithic site in East Asia.

Excavations at Gantangqing in Yunnan province uncovered nearly 1,000 wooden artefacts, including 35 clearly shaped tools, mainly digging sticks used to collect plant roots.

The site’s waterlogged sediments preserved the tools exceptionally well, filling a major gap in understanding early technology beyond stone tools and showing that complex wooden tool use was widespread much earlier than previously known, the South China Morning Post has reported.

Written by B.C. Begley