Digging stick

A digging stick, sometimes called a yam stick, is a wooden implement used primarily by subsistence-based cultures to dig out underground food such as roots and tubers, tilling the soil, or burrowing animals and anthills. It is a term used in archaeology and anthropology to describe similar implements, which usually consists of little more than a sturdy stick which has been shaped or sharpened and sometimes hardened by being placed temporarily in a fire.

Fashioned with handles for pulling or pushing, it forms a prehistoric plough, and is also described as a type of hoe. Digging sticks more than 170,000 years old, made of boxwood by Neanderthals, have been found in Italy.