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Chelsea, I found an interesting article today from a source I've never used before. So, you know,

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let's take it with a grain of salt, but it's interesting nonetheless. This is a website called

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ZME Science. Okay. And the article was written September 25, 2023 by Furman Koop. And the title

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of this article is Archaeologists Discover a Half Million Year Old Wooden Structure and It's Not

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Built by Homosapiens. Who the hell is it built by? Well, we'll get there. Okay. Half a million years

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ago, much earlier than it was previously believed possible, a human species was using wood to

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build structures according to a new study. The research report on the dig of well-preserved wood

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at the archaeological site of Colombo Falls in Zambia, dating back at least 476,000 years and

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predating the evolution of homosapiens. The researchers said stone tool cut marks on the wood

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show that early humans shaped and joined two logs to make a structure, likely the foundation of a

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platform. This is the earliest evidence of the deliberate crafting of logs to fit together as

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evidence for the human use of wood had been limited to its use for making fire sticks and spears.

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Wood is rarely found at ancient sites as it's usually rotten and disappears. However, the

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permanently high water levels of the Colombo Falls preserved its precious specimen. The finding also

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challenges the view that stone age humans were nomadic. At Colombo, these humans would have

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had a long-lasting source of water and enough food to settle down and build permanent structures.

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And I just want to interject a little bit right here. They keep using the term human,

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despite the fact that they said this predates homosapiens. It's because it's likely a pre-ancestor

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of humans. So like homo erectus as opposed to... Yeah, that's what I was assuming. Do they clarify

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that in the article? I don't think so, but I just thought I had to make that an understanding of what

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they're saying. They specifically said it wasn't homo sapien though, did they not? Yeah, they did.

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Okay, so they didn't clarify. Because homo sapiens didn't evolve until, I believe it was 300,000

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years ago, maybe 200,000 years ago. So homo sapiens didn't exist at that time, yeah. Okay, so they

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indirectly said that. Yeah, okay. So the wood found in Zambia was too old to be directly dated using

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radiocarbon techniques. Instead, the researchers at the University of Liverpool and Abercith with

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University used a technique called luminescence dating, which used for the last time minerals in

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the sand near the vines were exposed to sunlight to determine their age. That's interesting. Never

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heard of that. Yeah, that's crazy. This method allows researchers to go back much further in time

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and gives, quote, a glimpse into human evolution. Jeff Duller, one of the study authors, said this

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in a news release. Using luminescence dating, Duller found that the structure was 476,000 years old.

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They also dated four wooden tools found in the area, such as a wedge, at 324,000 years old.

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So that's, that's a huge gap, 150,000 years. Yeah. The researchers don't know which ancient human

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species made the structure in the tools, but it's unlikely to have been homo sapiens. The earliest

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fossils of homo sapiens found so far date from 300,000 years ago and were found in Israel,

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Dull told CNN. So there you go. He believes the people who have made the structure were cognitively

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sophisticated and it would be very exciting to figure out who constructed this. Colombo Falls

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is located on the Colombo River above a 235 meter waterfall on the border between Zambia and the

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Rukwa region of Tanzania at the edge of Lake Tanganyek. The area is a candidate to become a

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World Heritage site from UNESCO for its archaeological significance and it was first excavated in 1960

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by Professor John Clark and a quote to finish this off. I believe this is from Duller. Our research

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proves that this site is much older than previously thought. So its archaeological significance is

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now even greater. It adds more weight to the argument that it should be a United Nations

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World Heritage site. Said Duller hoping to continue making discoveries in the area in the

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coming years. So that's super interesting. I believe we knew that Neanderthals and Denisovans

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were both tool users. However, pre-ancestors to humans, pre-homo sapiens like Homo erectus and

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previously. I had never heard that they were tool users so that is very interesting to find out and

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to find something dated that far back is huge. Yeah, that's a really cool article and I just

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quickly because I never heard of luminescence dating before I quickly googled it and just a quick

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search on it tells me the accuracy of this technique is about 10%. So yeah, just wanted to say that.

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But very cool nonetheless. I am gonna hope that a professor, yeah and I do hope that a professor

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that's using it is confident in it and knows what he's talking about to be able to confidently say

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it's 476,000 years old. It could be off by about 90%. It turns out some kids built it last year.

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Man, was it shitty? Yeah, it was already rotten. Kids are not good craftsmen and I think it's super

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interesting if that does actually lead to somewhat reasonable estimations of age. Like it does solve

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the problem of you need matter that can be carbon dated, mostly carbon, to be able to carbon date

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things. So there's certain things that you like to unearth and you're like how old is it? There's

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just no carbon present, say like stones. So you can't tell when things were actually carved.

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Yeah, yeah that's a couple interesting things. I was gonna tell how old it is. Yeah, but that's

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probably enough on this. You guys are now educated enough and better than the rest of society for at

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least 48 hours. At that point you will come down to the average or possibly below it in fact,

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until you get your fix of Journey to the Fringe. So please tune in for your own sake. Bye.