A Middle Palaeolithic wooden digging stick from Aranbaltza III, Spain.

Joseba Rios-Garaizar,Illuminada Ortega-Cordellat,Arantza Aranburu,Oriol López-Bultó,Laurence Bourguignon,María José Iriarte-Chiapusso,Iñaki Libano,Raquel Piqué,Diego Garate,Carlos Pérez-Garrido,Eneko Iriarte

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0195044

Abstract

Aranbaltza is an archaeological complex formed by at least three open-air sites. Between 2014 and 2015 a test excavation carried out in Aranbaltza III revealed the presence of a sand and clay sedimentary sequence formed in floodplain environments, within which six sedimentary units have been identified. This sequence was formed between 137–50 ka, and includes several archaeological horizons, attesting to the long-term presence of Neanderthal communities in this area. One of these horizons, corresponding with Unit 4, yielded two wooden tools. One of these tools is a beveled pointed tool that was shaped through a complex operational sequence involving branch shaping, bark peeling, twig removal, shaping, polishing, thermal exposition and chopping. A use-wear analysis of the tool shows it to have traces related with digging soil so it has been interpreted as representing a digging stick. This is the first time such a tool has been identified in a European Late Middle Palaeolithic context; it also represents one of the first well-preserved Middle Palaeolithic wooden tool found in southern Europe. This artefact represents one of the few examples available of wooden tool preservation for the European Palaeolithic, allowing us to further explore the role wooden technologies played in Neanderthal communities.

Highlights

The production and use of wooden tools in the European Late Lower-Early Middle Palaeolithic has been indirectly attested through use-wear analyses [1,2,3,4], but direct evidence is much more scarce, most likely due to preservational biases, and only a few sites above latitude 48 have yielded preserved wooden tools (Schoningen, Lehringen and Clacton) [5,6,7,8]
We present a wooden pointed tool found at Aranbaltza III (Basque Country, northern Spain) dated to the early Late Pleistocene, which represents the oldest wooden tool from southern Europe, in this case associated with Neanderthals
This paper has presented a new Middle Paleolithic wooden tool

Summary

Introduction

The production and use of wooden tools in the European Late Lower-Early Middle Palaeolithic has been indirectly attested through use-wear analyses [1,2,3,4], but direct evidence is much more scarce, most likely due to preservational biases, and only a few sites above latitude 48 have yielded preserved wooden tools (Schoningen, Lehringen and Clacton) [5,6,7,8]. The site of Bad-Cannstatt, in Germany, has yielded maple (Acer campester) fragments interpreted as tools, but theses remains were heavily altered and are difficult to interpret [9]. Middle Palaeolithic wooden digging stick from Aranbaltza III

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion