US EditionRare Wooden Tools From Stone Age China Reveal Plant-Based Lifestyle of Ancient Lakeside Humans
- Researchers published on July 3, 2025, about 35 wooden tools from the Gantangqing site in southwestern China dating roughly 361,000 to 250,000 years ago.
- This discovery resulted from recent excavations that found well-preserved wooden tools in oxygen-poor lake shore sediments, expanding the record of ancient woodworking in East Asia.
- The tools include two large, heavy-duty digging sticks and demonstrate planning and craftsmanship for harvesting underground plant resources in a warm, subtropical environment.
- Bo Li, the study's lead author, explained that this finding is remarkable because it captures a specific period when ancient humans employed advanced wooden implements to gather subterranean edible plants.
- The findings overturn earlier views on how early humans adapted by revealing that East Asian hominins possessed sophisticated cognitive abilities and relied primarily on plant-based diets, in contrast to northern contemporaries who mainly hunted large animals.
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300,000-year-old wooden tools unearthed in southwest China
Modified wooden tool and shaping, use-wear marks on the object. Credit: Liu et al (2025), ‘300,000-year-old wooden tools from Gantangqing, southwest China’, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.adr854 Recent excavations in Gantangqing, China, have produced the earliest known evidence of complex wooden tool technology in East Asia. The wooden tools were found alongside stone tools, antler billets (soft hammers used for stone toolmaking) and cut-marked b…
·Washington, United States
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