7k-year-old well is the oldest wooden structure ever discovered
One of the things I most enjoyed about the previous find of this kind, from 2012, was the discovery that tusk tenons were 7000 years old: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;journals.plos.org&#x2F;plosone&#x2F;article?id=10.1371&#x2F;journal.pone.0051374" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;journals.plos.org&#x2F;plosone&#x2F;article?id=10.1371&#x2F;journal...</a> — and now we know that groove joints also date to that era, before even copper tools.<p>That discovery is only about 250 years younger than this one: &quot;A total of 151 oak timbers preserved in a waterlogged environment were dated between 5469 and 5098 [BCE].&quot;  That is, the youngest timbers were from 5098 BCE.<p>This one: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.upce.cz&#x2F;en&#x2F;our-restorers-to-help-preserve-7000-year-old-prehistoric-well#main" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.upce.cz&#x2F;en&#x2F;our-restorers-to-help-preserve-7000-y...</a>
<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;article&#x2F;pii&#x2F;S0305440320300066?via=ihub" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.sciencedirect.com&#x2F;science&#x2F;article&#x2F;pii&#x2F;S030544032...</a><p>I think it&#x27;s wonderful that they&#x27;re able to date the wood specifically to <i>5259–8 BCE</i>.<p>To put this in a worldwide human context, this is almost 2000 years before the beginning of the Harappan civilization; 1700 years before the Sumerian settlement of Uruk, where Gilgamesh and Nimrod ruled and from which we get &quot;Iraq&quot;; 2100 years before Narmer became the first Pharaoh in Egypt; and 3600 years before the Shang rose in the land of China.  In 5259 BCE there were still woolly mammoths on two islands between the lands we now call Russia and Alaska.  But the city of Çatalhöyük had already been deserted for 400 years after 1400 years of flourishing.