New archeological site revises chronology of human settlements on the Tibetan plateau

The human ancestors first went to the interior of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to a new study by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ACS). This new discovery is pulling back the oldest data on housing within 20,000 years or so.

The research team was led by Dr. ZHANG Xiaoling and Prof. GAO Xing of the Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of Vertebrates (IVPP) of the CAS. Their study, published in Science, was based on research from Nwya Devu, the oldest and largest archaeological site in the Stone Age dating back to the Stone Age, known around the world.

This archaeological achievement represents a major advance in our understanding of the human occupation and evolution of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, as well as prehistoric migrations and human exchanges on a larger scale. It puts an end to 60 years of trying to find the proof of the first human habitation on the set.

The high altitude, atmospheric hypoxia, cold temperatures all year round and the low rainfall of the plateau create an extremely difficult environment for human habitation. Archaeological evidence indicates that it was one of the last habitats colonized by Homo sapiens. Today, the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau is the third least populated place on the planet.

Until now, there was no concrete evidence showing that people lived inside the plateau before the Holocene geological epoch (there are 4,200 to 11 700 years). In addition, only a few reliably dated archaeological sites dating back to the Pleistocene (11,700 to 2.58 million years ago) were discovered near the plateau.

The Paleolithic site of Nwya Devu discovered by this team confirms that human ancestors trod the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of about 5,000 meters altitude, about 30,000 to 40,000 years ago. It is the first Paleolithic archaeological site discovered in Tibet that retains an intact stratigraphy allowing dating of the site's antiquity. Nwya Devu is located in the Changthang region in northern Tibet, about 300 km northwest of Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region, at about 4,600 meters above sea level.

The site includes a vast, dense surface of stone artifacts and a buried continuous record of human occupation. It is the oldest known Paleolithic site on the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and the highest ever discovered in the world. Before this discovery, the earliest archaeological traces of human activity at high altitude came from the Andean Altiplano, at about 4,480 meters above sea level, showing a human habitation about 12,000 years ago.

This discovery greatly deepens the history of human occupation of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and ancient human adaptations at high altitude (> 4,000 m altitude).

The Upper Pleistocene (about 12,000 to 125,000 years ago) was a crucial period for human evolution. During this period, the behavior and cognitive abilities of ancient humans grew rapidly and their ability to adapt to a wider range of environments increased in a similar way. The prehistoric cultural artefacts of Nwya Devu provide important archaeological evidence of the survival strategies of the modern anatomically and behaviorally modern peoples in what is arguably the most rigorous terrestrial environment on earth. It also analyzes Paleolithic exchanges and interactions between East and West by suggesting possible migration routes.

The document was approved by three reviewers during the evaluation process. One of the authors concluded that it was "… quite original and very exciting, and will be of great interest to readers of Science and researchers studying the origin and dispersion of modern humans and colonization at high altitudes. The results have profound implications for understanding the timing and dynamics of human colonization of the Tibetan plateau. "

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The Nwya Devu project was funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Natural Science Foundation of China and the Fundraising and Emphatic Deployment Project of the Institute of Paleontology and of paleoanthropology of vertebrates.