Stunning old stone tools in China

In Shangchen, about 600 kilometers west of Shanghai, stone tools of 2.1 million years were found. They are made using the old world technique used in Africa for more than half a million years: large pebbles with sharp edges in bends. This is surprising because it means that hominids left Africa much earlier than expected. As the oldest discovery outside of Africa, the tools of Dmanisi (Georgia), up to now, were 1.85 million years old. The oldest tools in Africa are 3.3 million years old (in the simplest lomekwi technique). The oldest (African) fossils of the modern human race Homo are 2.8 years old. The Chinese discovery is published this week in Nature .

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Many archaeologists led by Chinese Zhaoyu Zhu and the British Robin Dennell n & # Have not yet extracted from the earth: 82 pieces from dozens of layers of loess and palaeosols paleomagnetically dated between 1.26 and 2.12 million years ago. The most spectacular discovery, from the oldest layer, is six artifacts. The excavations were carried out along a steep rock wall.

Until now, it was still assumed that the first humanoid who had left Africa was to be Homo erectus with his long legs and – compared to his predecessors – a cerebral content considerable. At Schangchen, no human fossils have been found (yet), but due to the dating, it can hardly have been Homo erectus, since it had only been known since 1.9 million years ago. years.

The 1.78 million-year-old fossils found in Dennisi machines in the 1990s already cast doubt on Homo erectus as the main colon. The small Homo variant found in Georgia looks much more like Homo habilis older and more primitive, in their small brain content.

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Migrants

The Dutch archaeologist Wil Roebroeks reacts enthusiastically to this discovery, although he wants to see more details about dating – "Does this look like reliable? ", he reports by e-mail.

Roebroeks also sees the confirmation of a speculative theory on the development of Homo erectus, which he published in Nature in December 2005 with Robin Dennell of the current Shangchen team. Because, they reasoned then, if tools other than Homo erectus were outside of Africa, this human species might well have been born outside of Africa, from the varieties more primitive of Homo, or even the much older Australopithecus. The fossils of erectus in Africa would then come from migrants.

Roebroeks: "This Shangchen discovery is so old, and so far away in Asia! I really like to see how these results fit into our theory of 2005. Many paleoanthropic surprises have already come from the past. Asia! "The waiting is now on very old fossils of Asia.

The oldest fossils in China still do not offer a solution: they are old, but much younger that tools currently found.Only 10 km from Schangchen, in Gongwangling, a skull of Homo erectus was discovered: 1.6 million years old.And two thousand kilometers southwest, in Yuanmou , two erectus teeth were found, or 1.7 million years old.