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300,000-Year-Old Wooden Toolkit Reveals Early Denisovan Plant Processing

The tools’ deliberate shaping for harvesting underground tubers highlights advanced Denisovan technology in subtropical East Asia.

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Overview

  • Archaeologists uncovered 35 intentionally shaped wooden implements at the Gantangqing site in Yunnan Province, China.
  • Feldspar mineral dating places the toolkit between 361,000 and 250,000 years ago, marking the earliest known organic artifacts in East Asia’s Early Paleolithic.
  • The artifacts exhibit clear signs of carving, smoothing and wear, indicating deliberate manufacture by hominins.
  • Tool form and wear patterns suggest they were used for digging underground tubers and slicing nuts, pointing to a plant-based subsistence strategy.
  • Published in Science on July 3, 2025, the study overturns assumptions of technological stagnation in Paleolithic East Asia and implicates Denisovans as the likely toolmakers.