00:00A team of archaeologists working in the far north of Zambia
00:04discovered something that could revolutionize our understanding of the first humans.
00:09Was it a Walkman? Not really.
00:11It is a wooden structure built about 1.5 million years ago,
00:16the oldest of this type on Earth.
00:18This frame is made of two roundings that have been shaped to fit.
00:22A bit like the Lincoln Logs, these children's construction toys.
00:26It is inconceivable that two roundings simply drifted along the river
00:31and were naturally assembled in this way.
00:34They were carved with sharp tools
00:37even before the appearance of Homo sapiens in Africa.
00:40Researchers do not know which species of ancient humans
00:44could have accomplished such a feat,
00:47but they must have been quite competent in terms of planning
00:50and perhaps mastered a certain language
00:52in order to discuss their construction projects.
00:55This also suggests that the individuals of the Stone Age
00:58were not simply wandering nomads.
01:00They could have been more sedentary than we thought,
01:04with enough resources to stay in the same place.
01:07Discovering objects made of wood dating from the Stone Age
01:10brings us back to looking for a needle in a haystack,
01:13because it decomposes over time, just like Beethoven.
01:16But this one was discovered near the Calambo Falls,
01:19on the border between Zambia and Tanzania.
01:22This construction could have been a passage,
01:25a storage place for wood for heating or food,
01:28or even the base of a shelter.
01:30It was very well preserved in these sediments
01:33saturated with water and deprived of oxygen,
01:35which allowed it to remain in this state.
01:37The discovery presents traces left by tools used
01:40to assemble the two pieces.
01:42Archaeologists have also discovered four old wooden tools on the site.
01:47A bevel, a planter, a carved log
01:50and a branch with a notch,
01:52all dating back more than 300,000 years.
01:55Scientists have analyzed the minerals present in the sand
01:58surrounding these objects,
02:00and have used a technique called
02:02luminescence dating,
02:04to determine the age of their discovery.
02:06Experts believe they should explore more submerged sites,
02:10because they could contain other examples of ancient woodwork.
02:14Archaeologists must manipulate these discoveries
02:17with infinite caution to avoid damaging them,
02:20so they use plastic tools.
02:22The team that discovered this structure
02:24had to maintain the wet wood
02:26to preserve the traces of human activity
02:28and prevent it from breaking.
02:30It was brought back to the United Kingdom
02:32to be studied in special reservoirs
02:34designed for underwater photography.
02:36There, we were able to generate
02:38three-dimensional models of this wood.
02:40The oldest wooden artifact discovered so far
02:43is a piece of polished board
02:45from Haute-Galilée,
02:47dating back to more than 780,000 years.
02:50There are also 400,000-year-old
02:52pickaxe tools,
02:54but none of these discoveries
02:56are as advanced as the structure found in Africa.
02:59Scientists have also discovered
03:01cotton fibers from the ancient Jordan Valley,
03:04dating back 7,000 years,
03:06the oldest of their kind.
03:08The site of their discovery
03:10is a real time capsule,
03:13containing all kinds of ancient treasures
03:15and giving a glimpse of life at the time.
03:17We have already discovered traces of ancient feasts
03:20with storage spaces for food.
03:22Usually, objects from such an era
03:24disintegrate quickly,
03:26but thanks to high-tech microscopes,
03:28experts can examine in detail
03:30the sediments collected on site
03:32and discover all kinds of organic remains,
03:35starting with these cotton fibers.
03:38In the past, we thought that the textiles
03:40found here were made from local plants,
03:43but it seems that this cotton
03:45may have traveled from the Andean region
03:47in present-day Pakistan.
03:49It is therefore possible that the ancient site
03:51of Tel Saf was more connected
03:53than we thought,
03:55by integrating into a vast commercial network.
03:57Other evidence supports this idea,
03:59such as pearls from Anatolia,
04:01Romania and Egypt,
04:03as well as pottery from other regions.
04:05The oldest leather shoe,
04:07dating back to 5,500 years,
04:09was discovered in a cave
04:11in present-day Armenia.
04:13A British archaeologist found
04:15this treasure under a pot broken
04:17at the bottom of a well.
04:19Next to the shoe was a deer's shoulder,
04:21wild goat horns,
04:23a fish vertebra
04:25and some scattered pieces of pottery.
04:27The shoe itself is quite rudimentary,
04:29made from a single piece of cow leather,
04:31enveloping the right foot
04:33and held by a lace
04:35passing through eyelets.
04:37To preserve its shape,
04:39grass had been ploughed inside.
04:41Researchers do not know
04:43to whom this shoe belonged,
04:45but dating to radiocarbon
04:47allowed them to determine its age,
04:49as well as that of the ploughing grass.
04:51These shoes are very similar
04:53to those still worn today
04:55by the inhabitants of the Aran Islands in Ireland.
04:57The manufacturing technique
04:59of these shoes lasted in Europe
05:01until the middle of the 20th century.
05:03Near Leipzig,
05:05sculptors created a tomb
05:07dating from around 2,500 years
05:09BC,
05:11filled with more than 100 dog teeth,
05:13all properly aligned.
05:15These teeth could have made
05:17an elegant flap for a handbag.
05:19The leather or the fabric
05:21that held them together
05:23probably decomposed over the centuries.
05:25If this hypothesis is correct,
05:27it would be the oldest handbag in the world,
05:29dating back to the Stone Age.
05:31At that time,
05:33the use of capillaries and necklaces
05:35was widespread,
05:37both for women and men.
05:39The owner of this bag
05:41must have enjoyed a certain social status,
05:43given the amount of material
05:45used for its manufacture.
05:47Not to mention the many dog teeth.
05:53The oldest musical instruments
05:55ever made by man
05:57seem to be old flutes
05:59made of bird bones and mammoth ivory.
06:01They were discovered in a cave
06:03in southern Germany,
06:05a place that witnessed the first signs
06:07of the establishment of modern humans in Europe.
06:09Thanks to carbon dating,
06:11scientists estimated the age of these flutes
06:13to be around 42,000 years.
06:15According to archaeologists,
06:17these instruments could have been used
06:19for entertainment or religious ceremonies.
06:21Some believe that music
06:23could have helped to forge social bonds
06:25and extend our territory
06:27more efficiently than the Neanderthals,
06:29who disappeared around 30,000 years ago.
06:31In 2020,
06:33a team of scientists discovered
06:35a 6-millimeter-long string fragment
06:37in France.
06:39Archaeologists found this piece of string
06:41next to a stone tool,
06:43and these twisted fibers
06:45could have been used for various purposes,
06:47from clothing to fishing nets.
06:49During prehistory,
06:51this technique was considered
06:53a technological advance,
06:55and the Neanderthals
06:57mastered it.
06:59The researchers already knew
07:01that these first humans made
07:03cotton from work bark
07:05and produced pearl shells.
07:07There are even vestiges
07:09of Neanderthal art.
07:11The discovery of this string
07:13and similar artifacts
07:15shows that our ancestors
07:17from thousands of years ago
07:19were not as primitive
07:21as we tend to imagine.
07:23In the 19th century,
07:25a French Egyptologist
07:27discovered this piece of string.
07:29It contained a text in three writings,
07:31in Ancient Greek,
07:33in Egyptian hieroglyphs,
07:35and in Demotic.
07:37Jean-François Champollion
07:39was thus the first
07:41to unravel the secret of this code.
07:43He managed to match
07:45the Greek letters
07:47to the Egyptian alphabet,
07:49finally allowing us
07:51to read the hieroglyphs.
07:53In the early 20th century,
07:55the British archaeologist
07:57Sir Arthur Evans
07:59excavated a vast palatial complex
08:01in Knossos, on the island of Crete.
08:03This site was the center
08:05of Minoan culture.
08:07The palace contained
08:09more than a thousand pieces
08:11decorated with colored paintings
08:13depicting dolphins,
08:15griffins, and bulls.
08:17However, the most significant
08:19discovery was first neglected.
08:21Thousands of clay tablets
08:23were cooked.
08:25The fire that devastated the palace
08:27contributed to their preservation.
08:29No one could read these tablets
08:31because they were written in an unknown language.
08:33The scientific community
08:35had to wait another half century
08:37before Michael Ventris,
08:39an English architect and cryptographer,
08:41could decipher them.
08:43Ventris, who studied Greek and Latin,
08:45discovered that writing
08:47was an archaic form of Greek,
08:49known as Linear B,
08:51the oldest deciphered language in Europe.
08:53The civilization that used
08:55this writing disappeared
08:57at the end of the Late Bronze Age.
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