First Carpenters in Europe more than 7,000 years old

Wood was one of the first materials to be used by the early humans. Many different artefacts like wooden tools have been found in Tanzania, England and Germany but even more depicted in the paintings of the two major civilizations that were experts in wood working, the Egyptians and Chinese.

In Eastern Germany recently wooden water wells were discovered dating back 7,000 years, long before metal was discovered (or at least before we assume that metal was discovered). Oak timber has been used in a skilful way and the question is how could they process wood without metal tools?

The pieces of wood are cut in a precise way and a sophisticated interlocking joining process was used. They have used stone tools in order to cut the wood in such a fine way and further investigation has shown that probably they have used some bone tools during the process of creating the well.

More wooden wells have been found all around and in some of them the tools used were also found around the well, giving us more information of the ways of that period of time. More analysis on the oak trees used could provide more information of the environment that early humans lived as well as the atmospheric conditions of that era.

By John Black

Reference: Research Article ‘Early Neolithic Water Wells Reveal the World’s Oldest Wood Architecture by Willy Tegel, Rengert Elburg, Dietrich Hakelberg, Harald Stauble, Ulf Buntgen