While most wooden artifacts disintegrate after thousands of years, the newly unearthed oak tool has remained in remarkable condition.
Archaeologists were thrilled to discover a Bronze Age wooden spade in England, with radiocarbon dating suggesting that the “astonishing” artifact is around 3,500 years old -making it “one of the oldest and most complete wooden tools” ever uncovered in the UK.
Researchers with Wessex Archaeology have spent the past few years excavating wetlands on the southern coast of England, not far from Poole Harbour. They found the spade in a ring gully, a type of circular trench that was probably used to manage flooding around buildings. At first, they thought it might be a tree root. But upon closer inspection, they realized it was a nearly complete tool.
Preservation "occurs where it remains permanently wet through burial and excludes the oxygen,” Ed Treasure, an environmental archaeologist with Wessex Archaeology, told BBC News. “So unlike in a normal archaeological site, where organic remains like wood would disappear, they can become preserved for thousands of years, as this one demonstrates. But they are also very fragile, even when preserved.”
Around the time the spade was made, the region’s nomadic residents were starting to settle down and grow crops. The researchers don’t think they were living in the wetlands year-round. Instead, they probably returned seasonally to collect reeds, cut peat or let their animals graze.
The spade appears to have been carved from a single piece of oak. Archaeologists aren’t sure what it was used for, but they have several theories. “It might have been used to cut peat on the site,” says Treasure. “It may also have been used to dig the ring gully in which it was found.”
The team hopes that additional research will reveal more insights about the spade, as well as the people who inhabited the region thousands of years ago.