Stone tools unearthed in China suggest ancient humans in East Asia were less isolated than earlier believed

Late emergence of sophisticated stone tools in East Asia compared to East Africa has long been attributed to the region’s prolonged isolation

But stone artefacts unearthed at northern Chinese palaeolithic site challenge that theory, researchers in Spain and China say in new study

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The Nihewan basin in China’s northern Hebei province, where evidence from a palaeolithic site suggests the dispersal of advanced early humans to East Asia took place at least 300,000 years earlier than previously thought, new study says. Photo: Wikipedia

Published: 3:15pm, 13 Mar 2024

Anthropologists have long believed that the movement of ancient humans with advanced cognitive abilities from Africa to East Asia took place much later than that to other areas in Eurasia.

As far back as 1.7 million years ago, sophisticated stone tools with standardised shapes and manufacturing techniques had already emerged in East Africa. Yet, according to prevalent anthropological theory, it took another million years or so for such progress to reach East Asia.

Some studies suggested that this delay was due to prolonged isolation from the rest of the world.

But the recent discovery of a collection of stone artefacts in northern China challenges that theory, according to researchers in Spain and China who studied the find.

The belief that early humans in East Asia had only simple technological skills, and made basic and non-standardised stone tools, “has long been controversial”, the team said in their paper for the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Evidence from the palaeolithic – or Old Stone Age – Cenjiawan site, in the Nihewan basin in China’s northern Hebei province, suggests that the dispersal of advanced early humans to East Asia took place at least 300,000 years earlier than previously believed, the researchers wrote.