The 5 Oldest Artifacts in the World

While most may see artifacts as something in an ancient Egyptian tomb, or perhaps an ancient Greek pot, the oldest artifacts in the world are actually much, much older than that, tracing back to the times of Neanderthals.

#5 - Skhul Cave Beads

These beads were found in Es Skhul Cave, Haifa, Israel. The snails that made these shells come from the sea, which is 3.5 kilometers from Skhul. This means that the person who was collecting the shells must have walked for a long time - showing cultural significance. The discovery of the beads proposes that modern human behavior, such as personal decoration, music, etc, was developing much earlier than we thought.

The shell beads from Skhul Cave are at least 100,000 years old, and a bead from Oued Djebbana, Algeria is between 35,000 – 90,000 years old.

#4 - Blombos Cave Paint Making Studio

This 100,000 year old artifact was found among many other kits in Blombos Cave, Western Cape, South Africa. The kits, made of assorted bones and shells, were used to make paint. Since 1992, the Blombos archaeological site has been under excavation. In 2008, this paint making studio with two toolkits was found, dating back to 100,000 years ago. A red, paint sort of mixture was found, stored in two abalone shells. Homo sapiens are thought to have used bones, ocher, hammer stones, grindstones and charcoal to produce paint, all of which were found at the Blombos archaeological site. The process for making these paints was a tad complex; homo sapiens used quartzite stones in order to grind down the ocher, which would be mixed with marrow from heated bones.

#3 - Acheulean Stone Tools

These stone tools are about 1.76 million years old, being found spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe. The oldest of these tools comes from Kenya. They were named after the first place the Acheulean stone tools were discovered - St. Acheul archaeological site in France during the 1860s, and the oldest hand axes were found at the Kokiselei 4 archaeological site in Kenya, and date back to 1.76 million years ago. Lastly, the oldest hand axes found outside of Africa were unearthed in two cave sites in Spain, being about 900,000 years old.

Acheulean hand axes were used through much of early human history, most likely being first used by homo erectus, and used until the Middle Stone Age, 300,000 - 200,000 years ago.

#2 - Oldowan Stone Tools

The first Oldowan tools were discovered by Louis Leakey in the 1930s. They were about 1.8 million years old. Today, the oldest of these found are 2.6 million years old, and were found in Gona, Ethiopia. These stones are handmade tools that could be used for a variety of things, perhaps stripping meat from bone or cutting food. The researchers fr the Oldowan stone tools aren't sure who created these tools, since no fossils were found near the artifacts. One theory suggests Australopithecus garhi, a species of hominid discovered about 55 miles south of Gona. The remains of the species was located near animal bones showing signs of butchering, which shows these Oldowan tools might have been used by Australopithecus garhi.

#1 - Lomekwi Stone Tools

The very last on our list are the Lomekwi Stone Tools, the oldest artifacts in the world being 3.3 million years old - long before the first homo sapiens appeared. These tools were found in Lomekwi 3, an archaeological site in West Turkana, Kenya. Researchers don't know which hominid species created the tools. However, we have some evidence showing whichever one of our ancestors made the Lomekwi tools had the mental ability to craft them.