A 420,000-year-old wooden spear tip. The oldest known worked wood in Britain; preserved only because it fell into waterlogged sediment.
Geni, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
An accidental riverside discovery
In 1911, amateur prehistorian Samuel Hazzledine Warren was exploring sediment deposits on the coast of Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, when he found a pointed piece of wood. At first, he mistook it for an antler tine, but its form suggested something else. He had discovered the tip of a wooden spear, an object that would later be dated to the Hoxnian Interglacial period, approximately 420,000 years ago. This makes it the oldest worked wooden artifact ever found in Britain.
The spear point was found in what is known as the Clacton Channel, the former course of the River Thames. During the Hoxnian, this area was a temperate, marshy area of mixed oak forest and grassland bordering a river valley. The spear's remarkable preservation results from its resting place. It fell into oxygen-poor, waterlogged mud, which prevented the bacteria and fungi that cause decay from destroying the wood over hundreds of millennia. Without these specific anaerobic conditions, this record of early human technology would have vanished. The artifact is now housed in London's Natural History Museum.
A hunter's sophisticated tool
The Clacton spear point is made from the wood of a yew tree (Taxus baccata). When discovered, the fragment was 38.7 cm (15.2 inches) long and had a diameter of 39 mm, though it has since shrunk and warped slightly with age. Analysis shows it was crafted from the main trunk of a young yew, with the tip carefully shaped and scraped to a point, likely using a type of flint tool known as a Clactonian notch, examples of which were found at the same site. This level of woodworking shows a deep understanding of materials and a clear intent to create a functional weapon.
The tool was made by Homo heidelbergensis, an early human species active in Europe during this period. The spear was a lethal weapon, not a digging stick, a lethal weapon designed for hunting large game at close range. This is supported by other fossils found at the Clacton site, which include the remains of large mammals like the straight-tusked elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) and the narrow-nosed rhinoceros. The spear is associated with a specific flint tool industry called the Clactonian, characterized by thick, sharp flakes and chopper cores, but lacking the symmetrical hand-axes seen in the contemporaneous Acheulean tradition.
💡Fun Facts
The spear is made from yew wood, the same strong, flexible material used to make English longbows hundreds of thousands of years later.
For decades, some academics doubted early humans had the cognitive ability to make such a weapon, suggesting it was a simple digging stick. The 1995 discovery of more complete, 300,000-year-old spears in Schöningen, Germany, confirmed the hunting capabilities of these hominins.
The Clactonian tool-making style found with the spear is defined by what it lacks: carefully shaped, two-sided hand-axes common in other toolkits from the same era.
When it was found, the spear tip was encrusted with calcium carbonate, which may have contributed to its initial misidentification as an antler.
The Clacton spear is on display at the Natural History Museum, London. Open daily 10:00 a.m. to 5:50 p.m. (last entry at 5:30 p.m.). Closed December 24-26.
Admission
General admission is free, but booking a timed entry ticket online in advance is required. Special exhibitions may have a fee.
Accessibility
The museum is largely accessible, with ramps and lifts available.
