An international team of archaeologists led by the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Chinese Academy of Sciences has recently discovered a 40,000-year-old innovative culture at a well-preserved paleolithic site in northern China, in the Xiambei field in the Nihewan Basin
These previously unidentified cultural innovations consist of a set of stone tools with various blade shapes, along with the oldest known evidence of ocher processing in East Asia.
An Ancient Stone Age Culture
The excavation team found evidence of the culture some 2.5 meters below ground , when they detected a layer of dark silty sediment dating to between 41,000 and 39,000 years ago , based on accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon dating. and other analyses. This Stone Age sediment held a treasure trove. Although no hominid remains were found at Xiambei, the presence of modern human fossils at nearby sites suggests that the visitors to Xiambei were probably Homo sapiens.
The sediment contained artifacts and animal remains, including more than 430 mammalian bones, physical evidence of ocher use and processing, and more than 380 miniature lithics, or small tools and artifacts made of carved or ground stone .
“A main layer of the site contains the oldest known ocher processing feature in East Asia, a distinctive set of miniaturized stone tools with blade-like tools with hilt traces and a bone tool,” explained Shixia Yang, researcher at the Max Plank Institute and the Chinese Academy and co-author of the work published in the journal Nature.
The oldest case of using ocher to give color and consistency
Based on these archaeological finds, these ancient hunter-gatherers appear to have been the first humans in East Asia to process ocher and use complex tools, giving us new insights into how human culture and technology spread across the globe as Homo sapiens populations expanded out of Africa.
Some of the leaf-shaped stone tools found by archaeologists showed clear evidence of a hilt on a handle, with functional and residue analyzes suggesting they were used for drilling, skin scraping, carving plant material and cutting soft animal matter.
A complex technical system in transition
“Although the purpose of such an activity cannot be established (for example, the production of paint to color objects or decorate bodies), the amount of ocher powder produced was large enough for the leftover material to permanently impregnate the sediment of the ocher. the area on which the work was carried out”, write the researchers.
In fact, further analysis revealed that the different types of ocher had been crushed and scraped into powders of varying consistency; another contained rock fragments rich in hematite, a mineral that contains oxidized iron and gives red ocher its distinctive hue.
Which archaic hominids occupied Xiamabei 40,000 years ago? It could be modern humans, but the authors can’t be sure that Neanderthals and Denisovans weren’t also present at the site. No hypothesis can be ruled out in this regard.
“The ability of hominins to live in northern latitudes, with cold and highly seasonal environments, was probably facilitated by the evolution of culture in the form of economic, social and symbolic adaptations,” says Yang. “The findings at Xiamabei are helping us understand these adaptations and their potential role in human migration.”
Experts speculate that modern humans might have colonized the area in a “mosaic pattern,” characterized by an uneven distribution of innovations across the region and the uneven survival of local cultures and technologies.
Referencia: Shi-Xia Yang, Innovative ochre processing and tool use in China 40,000 years ago, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04445-2. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04445-2
