That’s kind of my point - by restricting it to “human”, the OP has essentially rendered the answer into “As long as there have been humans”, because of the quantities of tools produced. Might actually be more useful to wonder when we first started producing items of any worth (outside scientific value) - I suspect ivory items would rank high there.
Archeologists love digging in trash and even human waste pits. Once in awhile they might find broken pottery or glass. Maybe even a piece of jewelry or a coin that fell into the waste pit.
But, if you dig a trash pile. Mostly what you will find is … someone else’s trash.
It depends what you mean by “worth”. For example, there was a grindstone found in Australia dating back ~30, 000 years that was valued at several thousands of dollars simply because of its historical value. I imagine that museums and universities and even private collectors would also pay similar prices for significant pieces of almost an tool provided that it has some rarity. The oldest known bow is probably worth a fortune, or the earliest known spear thrower. These are things that are rare, and hence retain some value.
The older parietal art and rock carvings would similarly be worth a fortune if you could legally carve it up and put it on the market. Modern Aboriginal art goes for a fortune, and Egyptian or Persian friezes are worth a pretty penny, so I imagine that a good specimen of a 30, 000 year old piece would be nearly priceless.
These things may not have any materials value the way that ivory does, and they may not even have had any great value to the creators. But they have value in today’s world because of their rarity. I assume that’s what the OP was referring to.
What the oldest valuable object is by that standard I have no idea. Google tells me the oldest spear thrower is also in the ~30, 000 year range and I assume people would pay to add it to their collection, so that may be around the age we’re looking at.
Agreed. If we’re going by rarity value, we’d have a much wider selection of items to look at.
I agree (although neither of those are classed as “artifacts” sensu strictu)
I agree. But it so happens that some of the oldest things of that nature (rarity value) also happen to be valuable for other reasons (materials and aesthetics) and one of the oldest happens to be made of ivory.
If rarity value were all we were looking at, I’d saythishas them all beat, at 75 000 BCE. That piece is such a key element in the current theories of the evolution of behavioural modernity it should be literally priceless.
Wrong, I gave you cites that showed his numbers are correct.
As the part of your cite that I quoted in this very thread, it says “millions of scraps of worked flint”. Scraps of worked flint definitely are not tools.
This post is full of win.
Like facebook posts, the problem with flint chips is recognizing that the result is meaningful and significant and actually meant to be something of value. While archaeologists can look at a chunk o rock and say “see here, it was worked - deliberately - to attempt to achieve a shape like such-and-such” most people would simply see a chunk of rock. At least an arrowhead looks like an arrowhead. (I’m always amazed at the biologists who can define a whole human skull from a fragment of jawone and a few other bits.)
So I guess part of the criteria would be “and visibily obvious as being artificial”. Pointy sticks made by simply snapping a dry branch might not qualify.