Similar to how "The earliest wine press was probably the human foot or hand, crushing and squeezing grapes into a bag or container where the contents would ferment" - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_wine_press .
To be clear, people use "printing press" as metonymy for the broad set of methods Gutenberg developed (and its descendants), which includes not just the screw-powered printing press, but also type cases, appropriate oil-based ink, the composing stick, and other inventions that various internet sources tell me were created.
Which highlights another aspect of my irritation with the linked-to piece:
'''During a study of Gutenberg’s lettering techniques, computer programmer Blaise Agṻera y Arcas pointed out how strange this is: “The idea that a technology emerges fully formed at the beginning is nuts. Anyone who does technology knows that’s not how it works.”'''
That links to something in the Financial Times, which I assume is an editorial. Its inclusion is very odd since Gutenberg's printing isn't "a technology" but many different technologies, each with its own history. Oil-based inks were already used in the art worlds. Creating alloys appropriate for casting and subsequent use were already known. And of course the screw press was already known.
So when the author writes "Nonetheless, it is possible that printing technology spread from East to West", we must ask which printing technology? There is no evidence of a culture of printing advancements along the way from Korea to the Free City of Mainz, so the idea is supposed to be that Gutenberg (and I assume his workers) somehow came up with all these other inventions, but wasn't clever enough to come up with moveable type?