In the plains of western Ukraine, researchers digging through ancient soil found a handful of small, broken pieces of ivory that might change how we think about early humans.
The fragments—24 in total—came from the tusks of a long-extinct mammoth species. Most were unremarkable at first glance. But as scientists studied them more closely, they noticed patterns and shapes that didn’t seem like they had been accidentally broken.
Some pieces had been chipped in a way that looked deliberate, shaped with a level of care usually seen in stone toolmaking. And that’s what caught their attention.
“We had never seen or heard of ivory artifacts from the Lower Palaeolithic,” Dr. Vadim Stepanchuk, a Ukrainian archaeologist leading the study told the Smithsonian Magazine.
What followed was a long investigation that’s now raising big questions about what early hominins were capable of—long before modern humans appeared.
Ivory, Not Stone
The site, known as Medzhibozh A and located in the Southern Bug Valley about 300 kilometers South of Kyiv, has yielded flint, quartz tools, and the bones of long-extinct creatures: horses, woolly rhinos, large wild cats. But it was the ivory that caught researchers off guard.
“The discovery was indeed unexpected,” Stepanchuk told IFLScience. “We had never seen or heard of ivory artifacts from the Lower Palaeolithic.”
Ivory is softer than stone. It chips, it wears down, and it doesn’t hold a cutting edge. Yet at Medzhibozh A, at least 14 ivory fragments bear the unmistakable signs of human—or rather, pre-human—modification. Researchers identified flake scars, pointed shapes, even a core, all shaped with techniques typically used in stone knapping. One method, known as “bipolar-on-anvil,” involves placing the material on a rock and striking it with another to remove flakes.
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This kind of shaping is deliberate. Skilled. Purposeful. And it predates the previous oldest ivory objects by nearly 300,000 years.
Despite the craftsmanship, the pieces don’t appear to have been functional tools.
“We hesitate to call them ‘tools’ in the functional sense,” Stepanchuk told New Scientist. “The lack of any clear practical or technological function suggests these objects may reflect a different kind of activity.”
So what were they?
The scientists propose several possibilities. Perhaps these fragments were used as training tools, made by elders to teach children how to knap. Their shapes mimic real tools, but their fragility makes them useless for real work.
Alternatively, they could have served as early prototypes—an experiment in using a novel material, possibly because good stone was hard to come by. Or maybe, like a child’s crayon drawing pinned to a fridge, they were created not for utility, but out of a desire for expression or imitation.
Gary Haynes, a retired anthropologist at the University of Nevada, who was not involved in the study, said: “If the interpretations are correct, they add to an apparently increasing appreciation of the intelligence of pre-modern humans.”
A Different Kind of Intelligence
If these artifacts were made intentionally, they point to the overlooked intelligence of early hominins—likely Homo heidelbergensis, although no human fossils have yet been found at the site.
“The study of the ivory began without a specific hypothesis,” said Stepanchuk. “But their unusual characteristics, indicative of intentional modification, prompted closer examination.”
To test the theory further, researchers may turn to modern elephants. By analyzing how tusks break during natural behavior, like fights, they can compare those patterns with the ivory from Ukraine. If the differences are stark, it will strengthen the case for human craftsmanship.
Until now, the earliest known ivory artifacts came from the Upper Paleolithic, between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago. A few objects shaped by Neanderthals date to around 120,000 years ago. If confirmed as deliberate, the Medzhibozh ivory fragments push that date back to 400,000 years—deep into the Lower Paleolithic.
It means that even then, some communities experimented, adapted, and taught.
“Even at this early stage, hominins may have engaged in what might be described as imitative or socially motivated activities,” Stepanchuk said.
Perhaps, around a prehistoric campfire, someone picked up a broken tusk and showed a child how to shape it, prehistoric school.
And if so, it may be evidence of one of the earliest lessons ever taught.
The findings were reported in the International Journal of Osteoarchaeology.