Our ancient ancestors had to endure a lot to survive and evolve over the course of millennia, and we are still ignorant of much of the history of what happened, leaving researchers frequently surprised by what is discovered. Archeologists, for example, found what has now been confirmed to be the oldest modified mammoth ivory pieces ever discovered at a dig site in Ukraine. The dig site, called Medzhibozh A, is located in western Ukraine and has yielded many artifacts, but this is likely the most important.

These modified pieces of mammoth ivory were taken from rock that was dated to around 400,000 years ago, which is long before modern humans came to the scene. In a study that has been published in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology, the researchers speculate about how the pieces were made, and what they were used for. Interestingly, one of their leading hypothesizes is that the ivory was sculpted like this as a child’s toy or possibly even by children who were practicing the art of knapping.

This seems likely because the ivory would not be hard enough to be functional as a tool, but it would be easier to work with than rock that would be functional. So, the theory is that this ivory was used either as a practice material or a training material to help learn how to make proper tools for actual use.

In an email with IFLScience, the study author, Vadim Stepanchuk, said:

“The discovery was indeed unexpected. We had never seen or heard of ivory artefacts from the Lower Paleolithic. The surprise came not only from the use of ivory, but also from the highly unusual nature of the artefacts themselves. They are extremely small and closely resemble stone artefacts.”

The Lower Paleolithic period, also known as the Early Stone Age, took place from around 2.6 million to 200,000 years ago. This is the time period where stone and bone tools were first developed by our hominid ancestors. Prior to this find, it was generally believed that humans didn’t carve ivory until the Upper Paleolithic period, which was around 50,000 years ago.

The study does look closely at 24 fragments of the mammoth ivory and other artifacts found in this area, confirming that they were indeed worked with human hands. This confirms that these are indeed the oldest known ivory objects that were intentionally modified.

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