So far, a gap in China’s early history: In the period 300,000 to 45,000 years ago, when the Neanderthals left their typical stone tools in Europe and West Asia, the development in East Asia seemed to stagnate. But now finds in Longtan, southern Chinese, are drawing a different picture: Archaeologists have discovered 50,000 to 60,000-year-old stone tools there that have typical features of the Quina culture level-a Stone Age technology never previously found in East Asia. But who produced these tools?
The middle paleolithic 300,000 to 40,000 years ago is considered a decisive change in upheaval in human history. Because in this period, Homo sapiens developed in Africa. At the same time, Neanderthals and Denisova people developed the cultural level of Moustèria in Eurasia. Typical for Moustèria are tools such as scrapers, knives and tips that were created by targeted stone covers. Quina technology is closely associated with the Neanderthal subgroup of this culture in Europe and West Asia. Typical for them are asymmetrical stone scraps with a thicker side and a sharp cutting edge, which often has clear signs of repeated reel.
The strange, however: in East Asia and especially in China, the cultural level of Moustèria has so far largely been missing. “Instead of the last assumption in China, simpler stone processing techniques for a long time, until the appearance of modern people around 45,000 years ago,” explain Qi-Jun Ruan from the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and her colleagues. In East Asia there seemed to have been no typical cultural levels of the Middle Paleolithic. In addition, the few fossils found in East Asia have so far been controversial in terms of their dating and assignment from this period.
First evidence of Quina technology in East Asia
But new finds in Longtan in the South Chinese Yunnan province are now changing this. Ruan and their team discovered more than 3,400 stone tools and discounts on one of the river of the Caifeng river. Dates of the layer of the find resulted in an age of 50,000 to 60,000 years. However, the decisive factor: More precise analyzes of the stone artifacts showed that it is scratches and discounts, as they were typical of the Quina technology in western Eurasia. “All parameters that are defined for the Quina culture can also be found in our finds,” the archaeologists report. This includes asymmetrically, but also pitched scraps, but also indications of repeated re -raising.
It is the first time that stone tools of Quina technology were discovered in East Asia. “The find of Quina technologies in China not only proves the presence of a central Paleolithic technology in the region, but also shows large analogies to the Neanderthals’ tool culture in Western Europe,” write Ruan and its colleagues. The finds thus question the assumption of cultural stagnation during the Central Paleolithic in East Asia. Instead, they expand the distribution area of the Quina technology to East Asia. “This is a big break with our previous ideas about the development in this part of the world at the time,” says co-author Ben Marwick from the University of Washington.
Who created the Longtan stone tools?
At the same time, the new finds from Longtan raise the question of who made these tools of Quina technology there. So far, no Neanderthal fossils have been found in East Asia and relics of the Denisova people also come from West Asia. However, evidence of Denisova-DNA in today’s Tibetans shows that these early people or their descendants must have reached East Asia. “If we found human remains that are linked to this technology, this could promote surprising – maybe even a previously unknown human ancestor,” says Marwick.
It is also unclear how the Quina technology was created in East Asia. As the archaeologists explain, there are two possible scenarios. On the one hand, this tool culture in East Asia could have been created regardless of that in Europe and West Asia. “East Asian hominine groups could have developed the Quina features locally-based on similar cognitive and technical requirements as in the late Pleistocene populations in Europe,” explain Ruan and its colleagues. On the other hand, it would also be conceivable that immigrants from West Asia brought the Quina technology and took over the local early people.
Source: University of Washington; Specialist articles: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/PNAS.241802912