For 99% of hominin history, we were living in the Stone Age. It began some 3 million years ago, followed much later by the Bronze and Iron Ages, at just 10,000 and 5,000 years ago.

Hominins have used wood throughout those ages. For all that time, you could say we’ve been in a Wood Age -- though scientists never officially named one.

Wooden artifacts don’t often turn up in the archaeological record, because they decompose.

Nonetheless, traces have been found. Some stone tools in East Africa, dating to around 1.5 million years ago, show residue of being attached to wooden handles.

A wooden plank apparently polished by humans was dated to nearly a million years ago in Jordan. In Eurasia, wooden spears from more than 300,000 years ago were likely used for hunting or fishing.

A recent find near Kalambo Falls, in today’s Zambia, revealed wood logs cut by stone tools to form a platform or shelter. At 476,000 years old, these are the earliest known examples of wooden construction.

And wood is still widely used today. The average American uses two pounds of wood each day, mostly in packaging. Building the average American house requires two to three acres of forest! And nearly a billion people still burn wood for energy.

Though we never had an official Wood Age, we’re definitely still in it