What is the oldest designed object still in use today?

[Quercus]

Are chopsticks engineered enough to count? And when did they come into common use?

[solkoe]

@Quercus

Are chopsticks engineered enough to count? And when did they come into common use?

I guess I’m looking for a machine made product. I like Elmwoods definition

I’m thinking that the OP may mean the oldest exact, specific model of a product in continuous production and sale from the time it was first manufactured, rather than the oldest product itself. If that’s the case, my vote would go for a generic square nail manufactured to penny-size standards. In this case, the oldest designed object still in use today was designed in the early 1600s.

But who uses square nails anymore?

[BMalion]

@solkoe

I guess I’m looking for a machine made product. I like Elmwoods definition

But who uses square nails anymore?

raises hand

[Ludovic]

What about the M1911? Is it still made with substantially the same end product as originally, and if not, do the new materials qualify it as a substantially different gun from the original?

[sweeteviljesus]

@xizor

An anvil? Other than rust, how would you tell a new one from a 100 or 200 year old one?

Anvil patterns have changed quite a bit. Nowadays, the standard London pattern is the most common, but, say, 400 years ago, that wasn’t the case. At one time, stones were used as anvils and may have been used up until the iron age, but I don’t remember. Japanese anvils are quite different from western anvils, being essentially big blocks of steel and anvils in Africa and Asia are often improvised from some big hunk of metal that the blacksmiths happen to get hold of.

[UncaStuart]

How about the button? Disc-shaped, two or four holes drilled in it. Hasn’t really needed to evolve in a gahillion years.

[Sleel]

@Mangetout

Sure, but those aren’t such popular items today.

I still think a spoon, cup or bowl is going to come out near the top of the list even if we restrict it to manufactured items.

Our ancestors really weren’t all that different from us; take for example this house - it had beds, shelf units, even a primitive flush toilet - and it was in use something like five thousand years ago. Bone needles and combs, plus pottery bowls and other items were found there.

Oh yeah, what was I thinking? We never make clay beads or fetishes anymore.

All sarcasm aside, I pretty much agree that as far as stuff that we use on a more or less daily basis bowls or cups would be hard to beat for longevity. And one of the points I was trying to make is that people then and people now are pretty much the same, so we don’t have much to disagree about.

[Nic2004]

While this is obviously predated by such relatively simple tools as flint knives and wooden bowls, what first came to my mind was the Archimedean Screw as a designed and constructed device and I have seen the very same thing currently in use in the Middle East for watering agriculture.
Perhaps too recent but a fair candidate for notice I feel.

[BrassyPhrase]

@sweeteviljesus

Anvil patterns have changed quite a bit. Nowadays, the standard London pattern is the most common, but, say, 400 years ago, that wasn’t the case. At one time, stones were used as anvils and may have been used up until the iron age, but I don’t remember. Japanese anvils are quite different from western anvils, being essentially big blocks of steel and anvils in Africa and Asia are often improvised from some big hunk of metal that the blacksmiths happen to get hold of.

When I read the first post about anvils, I thought “Wow! I wonder if there are still anvils made and sold? If so where? And when?”

Then I realized I’ve been to a few of those places where you see re-enactors show woodworking and smithing.

So before asking, I googled and found this site:

http://www.beautifuliron.com/gs_anvils.htm

Very interesting.

Plus I keep giggling at “hardie hole”.

Yes, I am a 40 year old woman with (sometimes) the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy. I’m not proud of it.

<giggling> Hardie hole.

(Yes I did find Beavis and Butthead funny—why do you ask?)

[Tuckerfan]

@BrassyPhrase

Yes, I am a 40 year old woman with (sometimes) the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy. I’m not proud of it.

<giggling> Hardie hole.

(Yes I did find Beavis and Butthead funny—why do you ask?)

So, how you doin’?

[BrassyPhrase]

@Tuckerfan

So, how you doin’?

I know, I know.

I had you at hardie hole.

[Tuckerfan]

@BrassyPhrase

I know, I know.

I had you at hardie hole.

Actually, you had me at

Yes, I am a 40 year old woman with (sometimes) the sense of humor of a 12 year old boy.

[Civil_Guy]

I’d still argue for the walking stick, or stone hammer, or - ah - ditch. There’s another category that’s only been considered tangentially: the wide world of ‘art.’ Rather highlights the questions of what constitutes “manufactured” and even “use”, I suppose.

Granted that I might not pick up a rock today as the first choice for a mallet if there was a better mallet not far away, but if there’s a rock handy and a tent peg that needs to be set, I’ll use the rock.

[Squink]

@Napier

BUT somebody today training a nonhuman primate to do this is certainly not the same as them having figured it out themselves in prehuman times, which I thought was well established. Now that it looks uncertain I have to retract what I said and apologize!

There is this Chimp nut cracking site

What is particularly striking about the site’s layout is the arrangement of stone chips in six distinct locations around the Panda tree. The chimps strike the nuts only in areas focused around an anvil—usually a nook in a tree stump or another immobile object—that can steady the nut as it is being whacked.

Details of a 4,000 year old site here, with pictures of some of the tools.

With implements that primitive, it’s hard to say whether any of the rock chipping resulted from an actual design decision on the part of the apes.