Into the woods: new methods for studying Palaeolithic organic technologies

Order of events:

4.30pm Presentation President’s awards, Peter Clarke award and the Student Dissertation Prizes.

5-5.45pm: Lecture

5.45-6.45pm: Wine reception.

FREE to attend and no need to book for in person or online: just turn up or watch on our live YouTube feed (click on the 'Book Now' button above left).

Abstract:

In telling stories about human evolution and technological adaptations, the stones have done most of the talking, with bones playing a supporting role. We have of course understood for some time that wood, a material with different properties to stone and bone, also likely played a key part in enabling early human adaptations, including for tools and as fuel for fire. Yet wood typically rots away, leaving us with a paucity of artefacts and a corresponding lack of understanding of how wood was selected, shaped, used, and discarded in the deep past. 

In this talk, Dr. Annemieke Milks will give an up to date overview of evidence of the earliest wood artefacts ranging from small objects including potential tool handles and hide working tools, weapons and digging sticks, and even structural elements. She will explore in detail some important early wooden tools including the broken yew spear from Clacton-on-Sea (U.K.) dated to 400,000 years ago, and weapons and domestic tools from the 300,000-year-old site of Schöningen (Germany). Through the development of new frameworks for technological analysis, alongside state-of-the-art imaging techniques such as microcomputed tomography and 3D microscopy, we can see into the wood’s internal features while also mapping surface features of the earliest wooden artefacts. New ways of visualising these early tools in three dimensions show that humans had sophisticated and multi-step woodworking strategies during the Middle Pleistocene, enabling them to adapt to repeatedly climates and environments using this versatile material.