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Wooden tools and weapons were a substantial part of Paleolithic technology, even though stone artifacts dominate what archaeologists can recover. At Germany’s Schöningen site, unusually well-preserved worked wood—including spears and throwing sticks—appears alongside flint tools and animal remains. A 2025 study proposes that the spear horizon dates to about 200,000 years ago, potentially linking it to Neanderthals, but both the revised date and the identity of the makers remain debated.
Why stone survives more often than wood
Stone is durable; wood usually decays. That difference skews the archaeological record toward stone and makes wooden artifacts rare finds, especially outside places with exceptional preservation. The scarcity of surviving wooden tools therefore cannot show that ancient people seldom used wood.
There is no defensible Europe-wide statistic establishing what proportion of Paleolithic tools were made from wood rather than stone. The evidence instead shows that people worked multiple materials and that the finds surviving today reflect preservation as well as past behavior. The Smithsonian’s overview of the Schöningen spears describes them in a context that also includes stone tools and butchered horse remains: Smithsonian Institution, “Oldest Wooden Spear”.
What Schöningen reveals about woodworking
Schöningen, in Lower Saxony, is an exceptional window into wooden technology—not a representative census of every European Paleolithic site. Its preserved materials include wood, sediments, pollen, seeds, animal remains, flint tools, and worked bone and wood. Together, these finds help researchers reconstruct the environment and hominin activity at the lakeshore.
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The Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage reported in 2024 that researchers used 3D microscopy and micro-CT to examine the wooden objects. The analyses revealed a broader range of woodworking than previously recognized, including splitting small pieces and shaping them for processing hunted animals. Selected trunks were made into spears and throwing sticks; damaged or unusable implements could be repaired or recycled. The office’s account describes at least 20 spears and throwing sticks left at the lakeshore, and says the new analysis doubled the number of known wooden weapons at the site. That figure concerns Schöningen, not Paleolithic Europe as a whole. Lower Saxony State Office for Cultural Heritage, 2024.
The recovery history is a separate count: Senckenberg says ten spears and other worked woods were recovered from 1995 to 1999. The site had already yielded early worked wood at another locality in 1992, while finds from the spear horizon began in 1994. Senckenberg notes that a throwing-stick interpretation for the first wooden artifact from the spear horizon had not then been scientifically proven, so function should not be assumed for every piece. Senckenberg Nature Research, “Research Center Schöningen”.
How old are the Schöningen spears, and who made them?
The chronology has changed. On May 9, 2025, Hutson and colleagues published a study proposing a revised age of approximately 200,000 years for the spear horizon, based on dating from the layer containing the spears. That estimate would place the finds in the Middle Paleolithic and align them with European Neanderthals. The authors interpret the date as evidence relevant to the development of cooperative hunting, but the dating is a revised scholarly interpretation, not an uncontested consensus. Hutson et al., Science Advances, May 9, 2025; Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, May 12, 2025.
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Older institutional accounts give different ages. The Smithsonian page lists about 400,000 years, while the Lower Saxony office’s 2024 release frames its finds as about 300,000 years old. Those figures predate the 2025 revision and should not be presented as settled current dating. The new estimate makes a Neanderthal connection plausible, but it does not establish that Neanderthals made every spear—or identify the makers directly.
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The debate remains open. The Associated Press reported that archaeologist Thomas Terberger, who was not involved in the 2025 study, called its arguments “interesting, but not absolutely convincing.” The distinction matters: dating a layer can change which hominins are plausible makers without proving the identity of the people who crafted each artifact. Associated Press, May 9, 2025.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Clacton-on-Sea shows toolkits went beyond wood and stone
Evidence from Clacton-on-Sea, England, broadens the picture beyond wooden weapons. A 2022 study re-examined bone artifacts and found microscopic traces consistent with their use as knapping hammers—to shape or resharpen flake tools. The authors describe them as the earliest known organic knapping hammers associated with core-and-flake Mode 1 technology. This is evidence for another material in Paleolithic toolmaking, not evidence identifying Neanderthal makers. Parfitt, Lewis, and Bello, Scientific Reports, 2022.
Quick Recap
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| Site | Organic finds and function evidence | What the evidence does not establish |
|---|---|---|
| Schöningen, Germany | Worked wooden weapons, including spears and throwing sticks; woodworking and repair evidence. The 2025 study proposes an age of about 200,000 years for the spear horizon. | The revised date does not prove who made each artifact; some individual function interpretations remain uncertain. |
| Clacton-on-Sea, UK | Bone pieces with microscopic evidence interpreted as use for knapping hammers, alongside a wooden spear remnant in the site’s archaeological record. | The 2022 study does not identify a Neanderthal maker, and the site should not be treated as contemporaneous with Schöningen on this evidence. |
What the evidence supports
- Wood was an important raw material in Paleolithic technology, and exceptional preservation at Schöningen exposes woodworking that usually disappears.
- Schöningen’s wooden weapons belonged to a mixed toolkit that also included stone and other materials.
- The 2025 dating proposal makes Neanderthals plausible makers of the spear-horizon artifacts, but the date and attribution are not settled.
- Clacton-on-Sea adds evidence that bone, too, could serve as a working tool in Paleolithic technology.
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