Archaeologists have uncovered evidence that early humans produced sophisticated stone tools in central China during a brutal ice age 146,000 years ago. The findings come from the Lingjing site and challenge previous assumptions about when human creativity emerged.
Researchers at the Lingjing archaeological site in central China have spent more than a decade excavating animal bones and stone tools linked to an extinct human relative called Homo juluensis. A new study published in the Journal of Human Evolution dates the site to approximately 146,000 years ago, placing the artifacts within a cold glacial period rather than a warmer era as earlier estimates suggested.