Pleistocene tools uncovered from the Gantangqing site in China provide evidence of the oldest known complex wooden technology ever discovered in East Asia, dating back to roughly between 361,000 and 250,000 years ago.
The discovery sheds light on the diverse range of tools used by Middle Pleistocene humans, extending beyond hunting to include digging and processing plants, providing valuable insights into the lives of these ancient hominins. The sophistication of the 35 wooden tools contrasts with the simplicity of the stone implements found at other Paleolithic sites in East Asia.
Pleistocene Wooden Tools
The earliest known wooden tools were produced about 1.5 million years ago. Despite the great antiquity of woodworking, only Western Eurasian and African sites have so far produced Early or Middle Pleistocene wooden tools, with no prior East Asian excavations recovering any. Examples of known wooden tools from the period globally include German and UK spears, Zambian interlocking logs used in construction, and planks and digging sticks recovered from Israel and Italy.
When it comes to expectations for wooden tools in the region, some archaeologists have long argued in favor of the Bamboo Hypothesis. This idea suggests that bamboo was the material of choice for the earliest East Asian woodworkers; however, evidence for any tools composed of organic materials has been minimal. A major component of this idea is the abundance of bamboo in the region, making it an obvious candidate.
Intriguingly, instead of bamboo, the objects found at Gantangqing were constructed primarily of soft pine, yet a few were of harder wood.
Uncovering Tools at Gantangqing
The site was discovered in 1984, but the first excavations did not begin until 1989. It was in four trenches, 3.5 to 7 meters deep, uncovered between 2014 and 2019, that the wooden tools were discovered, alongside faunal and floral remains. The layers of grayish-brown clay sediment helped preserve the organic materials for hundreds of thousands of years. Dating the site involved a rich combination of techniques, including the dating of animal teeth, paleomagnetism, and optical dating of potassium-rich feldspar.
In all, over 1000 pieces of wood were recovered from the trenches, yet only 35 were discerned to be anything other than formless scraps. Included in the find were larger sticks, presumably used as a two-ended digging tool, and small hooks likely for cutting plant roots. Two tiny implements puzzle the researchers, who consider that they may have been awls, but have no concrete evidence to support this theory.
“The diversity and sophistication of the wooden tools … fill a significant gap in the archaeological record, as pre-100,000-year-old wooden tools are extremely rare outside Africa and Western Eurasia,”said co-author Professor Bo Li of the University of Wollongong.
Sophisticated Wooden Implements
The Pleistocene artifacts uncovered at Gantangqing displayed clear signs consistent with intentional shaping and continued use, in the form of whittling, smoothing, and wear. The evidence at the site reveals a unique focus on small, sophisticated tools for utilizing plants, in contrast to the medium-sized hunting implements that dominate European excavations from the same period.
“The discovery challenges previous assumptions about early human adaptation,” Professor Li said. “While contemporary European sites (like Schöningen in Germany) focused on hunting large mammals, Gantangqing reveals a unique plant-based survival strategy in the subtropics.”
Some of the stone pieces suggest to the team that small wooden tools were made and modified on the premises, although the larger wooden tools were likely made elsewhere and transported. The preponderance of wood tools may have been due to either a lack of suitable stone materials being locally available or the residents’ perception that stone was unnecessary, given the effectiveness of their wooden implements.
The importance of these rare tools, constructed of organic materials, lies in their ability to reveal a much richer and more sophisticated people than can be found in more primitive, yet more common, stone tools alone.
“This discovery is exceptional because it preserves a moment in time when early humans were using sophisticated wooden tools to harvest underground food resources,” Professor Li concluded. “The tools show a level of planning and craftsmanship that challenges the notion that East Asian hominins were technologically conservative.”
The paper “300,000-year-old Wooden Tools from Gantangqing, Southwest China” appeared on July 3, 2025, in Science.
Ryan Whalen covers science and technology for The Debrief. He holds an MA in History and a Master of Library and Information Science with a certificate in Data Science. He can be contacted at ryan@thedebrief.org, and follow him on X: @mdntwvlf.