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

Science

Victoria Bela

Published: 3:15pm, 13 Mar 2024

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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.

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The discovery shows that hominins with “advanced technical abilities” – or “Acheulean” technology – may have “occupied East Asia significantly earlier than previously believed”, lead author Ma Dongdong from the Spanish National Research Council’s Institute of History said.

Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, and the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology also took part in the study.

Researchers have been collecting evidence from the Cenjiawan site since 1986, including stone cores, flakes and tools dating back to 1.1 million years ago, according to a press release from the journal. Flakes are pieces of rock struck off to be used as tools, while the original rock is called the core.

But the absence of any hand axes, “the first widely accepted, intentionally shaped stone tool” in archaeological finds in East Asia from this time period drove the hypothesis that early humans here remained in a mode 1 techno-complex, Ma said.

He was referring to a grading system used by archaeologists for human technological and tool development, where mode 1 is the first level.

Acheulean sites elsewhere around the world are a step above at mode 2 technology, and commonly show the presence of hand axes.

Stone tools unearthed at the Cenjiawan site in the Nihewan basin. Photo: Xinhua

While hand axes have also been found in Chinese sites in recent years, some researchers believe they differ from the European and African Acheulean tradition, Ma said.

However, the latest study challenges the focus on hand axes as a determiner for Acheulean technology, due to the presence of other complex tools at the Cenjiawan site.

“Prepared core technology” is a process to control how flakes are removed from stone cores to make standardised tools, and requires “a thorough knowledge of stone properties and advanced planning skills”, Ma said.

“Compared to the simple techniques of early tool production, prepared core technology represents a significant advancement in cognitive and technological capabilities [of early humans].”

The tools, stone flakes and cores found at the Cenjiawan site were regular in shape and followed a specific production scheme that the researchers were able to recreate, according to the paper published last week.

The team believes the absence of hand axes at the site can be explained by the low quality of raw materials in the area, as well as environmental conditions that favoured smaller tools compared to the hand axe.

“It is widely accepted that the hominins that first dispersed from Africa into East and Southeast Asia were associated with mode 1 technology,” the paper said.

It is believed that these early humans in East Asia experienced evolution isolated from populations in Africa, Southern Europe and the Indian subcontinent for over a million years, it said.

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However, despite the lack of hand axes as an indicator for Acheulean technology, the authors said that evidence of prepared core technology at the Cenjiawan site – consistent with widely accepted mode 2 early human abilities – should prompt a reconsideration of this theory.

The earliest human occupation of China is believed to date back to around 2 million years ago. The authors said it was possible that there were also multiple migrations of early humans from Africa to East Asia during the early Pleistocene era, some 2.6 million to 700,000 years ago.