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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →Neanderthals made and maintained wooden tools, including implements that may have been used for hunting. But the surviving evidence does not support a reliable ranking against early Homo sapiens: the best-known Neanderthal-associated finds come from unusually wood-preserving contexts, while the sources discussed here do not establish a directly comparable early Homo sapiens woodworking assemblage.
What the Neanderthal-associated evidence shows
Wood rarely survives at archaeological sites, so direct evidence of ancient woodworking is exceptional. Schöningen, in Germany, is a notable exception. A systematic study by Leder and colleagues, published in PNAS in 2024, identified 187 wooden artifacts from the site’s Spear Horizon. The assemblage documents varied woodworking techniques and tool forms, rather than a single kind of implement.
The artifacts show that their makers deliberately selected and shaped wood. A multianalytical study by Milks and colleagues, published in PLOS ONE in 2023, examined a double-pointed stick and documented marks consistent with shaping it using stone tools. The researchers interpreted it as likely intended for hunting as a throwing stick. That is a reasoned functional interpretation, not a certainty: an object’s shape and manufacturing traces do not by themselves prove exactly how it was used.
How the Schöningen date affects who made the tools
The species attribution is unsettled because the age assigned to the Spear Horizon has changed. The 2024 assemblage study and the 2023 analysis described Schöningen as roughly 300,000 years old. A 2025 Science Advances study by Hutson and colleagues proposed a revised age of about 200,000 years.
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The younger proposed date makes Neanderthal involvement more plausible, but it does not identify the individual makers. The artifacts are not accompanied by hominin remains that settle their species. It is therefore more accurate to call the Schöningen tools Neanderthal-era or Neanderthal-associated evidence than to state that Neanderthals made every artifact as a proven fact.
Evidence from Poggetti Vecchi adds a different kind of detail
Schöningen is not the only site with wooden tools associated with an early Neanderthal population. At Poggetti Vecchi in Italy, a study by Aranguren and colleagues, published in PNAS in 2018, reported wooden tools made through a sequence involving wood selection, stone-tool shaping, and fire-assisted working.
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This evidence shows that woodworking could combine more than cutting or scraping with stone. Fire was part of a multi-step manufacturing process at Poggetti Vecchi. The Schöningen and Poggetti Vecchi finds are distinct site records, however; they should not be treated as proof that every Neanderthal group used the same techniques or made the same kinds of tools.
Woodworking can leave traces even when the wood is gone
Archaeologists can sometimes identify woodworking from stone tools and the small flakes produced while maintaining them. Research on Schöningen stone artifacts found use-wear and residues consistent with woodworking, alongside evidence of hide and meat processing. A separate microartifact study found traces on small resharpening flakes consistent with working or maintaining wooden tools.
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These traces matter because an absent wooden object is not evidence that people did not use wood. Stone may survive where the implement it shaped, or the handle attached to it, has decayed. Use-wear and residue analyses can help recover part of that missing activity, though they do not provide the same direct information as a preserved wooden artifact.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why this is not a simple contest with early Homo sapiens
The evidence summarized here documents Neanderthal-associated or Neanderthal-era woodworking in more detail than it documents early Homo sapiens woodworking. It does not provide a directly comparable early Homo sapiens assemblage with matching information on date, materials, manufacturing traces, function, and preservation conditions. That is a limit of this comparison, not evidence that early Homo sapiens did not work wood.
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- The materials differ in visibility. Schöningen’s exceptional preservation makes wooden objects unusually available for study. At many sites, comparable organic tools would not survive.
- The evidence is not equally direct. Preserved wood can reveal an artifact’s form and manufacturing marks. Use-wear on stone can indicate woodworking even when the wood itself is missing, but it cannot supply a complete wooden-tool inventory.
- The objects do not all have equally certain functions. The double-pointed stick’s proposed use as a hunting throwing stick is supported by analysis, but remains an interpretation.
- “Toolmaking” is broader than woodworking. Comparing all tools made by one species with wooden tools made by another would mix different categories of evidence. A fair comparison would focus on woodworking in both groups and account for each site’s age, location, and preservation.
A stronger head-to-head comparison would require well-dated assemblages from both groups with clear maker attribution, preserved or inferable manufacturing traces, useful evidence about tool function, and enough context to judge how preservation shaped what survived.
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