Remains of an ingenious Old Stone Age society have been discovered in China, where prehistoric people, 40,000 years ago, fashioned small, blade-like implements from stone. Xiamabei, a very well preserved Palaeolithic settlement in northern China’s Nihewan Basin, has been unearthed by archaeologists.
While no human remains were discovered at Xiamabei, the scientists discovered ingredients for refining ochre – an iron-abundant stone used to manufacture dye – as well as a collection of unique blade-like stone tools. The tools are believed to have been utilized by Homo sapiens at the location, but they may have met Denisovans or Neanderthals upon their arrival approximately 40,000 years ago.
At Xiamabei, hominins very certainly congregated surrounding a bonfire, hafting blade-like primitive tools to do chores such as hide as well as plant processing and sharing meals, including meat they caught. The research claims that the oldest known traces of ochre production in East Asia was discovered in Xiamabei. Indeed, ochre was heavily utilized there. The location generated such a significant amount of ochre that residual material permanently contaminated the landscape.
Furthermore, the researchers claim that the collection of stone instruments, which they characterize as distinct and ingenious and which totaled 382 artifacts, displayed advanced abilities for the time period. These abilities include miniaturization — virtually all of the pieces are less than 1.5 inches in length, and the majority are less than 0.7 inches in width.
The researchers report that the artifacts discovered at Xiamabei do not correlate to those discovered at other archaeological finds occupied by archaic species such as Neanderthals, Denisovans, or even those traditionally connected with the spread of Homo sapiens.
The results demonstrate that contemporary evolutionary models are oversimplified and that modern humans and our civilization evolved via recurrent but distinct experiences of genetic & social interactions over vast geographic regions, rather than as a singular, fast dispersion wave throughout Asia.
The findings were published in the journal Nature.
