Arlington, Va.—Early humans lived in northern China about 1.66 million
years ago, according to research reported in the journal Nature this
week. The finding suggests humans—characterized by their making and use
of stone tools—inhabited upper Asia almost 340,000 years before previous
estimates placed them there, surviving in a pretty hostile environment.
The research team, including Richard Potts of the Smithsonian
Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, reports the results of
excavating four layers of sediments at Majuangou in north China. All the
layers contained indisputable stone tools apparently made by early
humans, known to researchers as “hominins.”
The top layer, located about 145-148 feet deep in the Earth’s soil,
contains the oldest known record of hominin stone tools, dating back to
1.32 million years ago. But the fourth and deepest layer, in which Potts
and his team also found stone tools, is about 340,000 years older than that.
According to Potts, “Because the oldest layers show humans made tools
and extracted bone marrow like early people in Africa, the Majuangou
evidence suggests strong connections with African hominins and their
rapid spread across Asia.”
All four sediment layers the researchers examined contained evidence
that early humans used stone tools to strike other stones, most likely
to fashion chopping and scraping tools. In the three deepest layers, the
stone tools are made of rocks unlike those in the surrounding sediment,
indicating the Asia humans transported the rocks from another place. It
also appears these humans used their tools on bones of deer- and
horse-sized mammals, perhaps to butcher them for food.
According to Mark Weiss, physical anthropology program director at the
National Science Foundation, which funded the discovery, “This research
is helping us gain a picture of the adaptability of humans as they
evolved and moved out of the tropics and into other environments.”
The research team used rock-magnetic dating methods to establish the age
of the artifacts collected at the Majuangou site and compared them to
the soil history of a nearby site that contained a more-complete record
of sediment deposits through time. Factoring in other known geological
events, such as the natural movement of the Earth’s magnetic poles over
time, the scientists pieced together a detailed age sequence for the
archeological levels.
These findings suggest that humans reached northeast Asia earlier than
scientists had previously thought. Furthermore, the Majuangou site
evidence is only slightly older than evidence found at the same latitude
in western Eurasia and about the same age as the earliest known human
fossils found in southeast Asia. This implies that African human
populations came to Asia and spread rapidly to many areas.
-NSF-
/The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency
that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of
science and engineering, with an annual budget of nearly $5.58 billion.
NSF funds reach all 50 states through grants to nearly 2,000
universities and institutions. Each year, NSF receives about 40,000
competitive requests for funding, and makes about 11,000 new funding
awards. The NSF also awards over $200 million in professional and
service contracts yearly./
/Receive official NSF news electronically through the e-mail delivery
and notification system, *Custom News Service*. To subscribe, enter the
NSF Home Page at: http://www.nsf.gov/home/cns/#new and fill in the
information under "new users."/