Innovative culture from 40,000 years ago discovered in China

Archaeological excavations at the Xiamabei site in northern China have revealed innovative behaviors and unique tool sets of a culture dating back 40,000 years.

The discovery of this new culture, reported in Nature, suggests processes of innovation and cultural diversification that occurred in East Asia during a period of genetic and cultural hybridization.

Although previous studies have established that Homo sapiens arrived in northern Asia around 40,000 years ago, much is still unknown about the life and cultural adaptations of these early peoples, as well as their possible interactions with archaic groups.

In the search for answers, the Nihewan Basin, with a large number of archaeological sites ranging in age from 2 million to 10,000 years, offers one of the best opportunities to understand the evolution of cultural behavior in Northeast Asia.

With the earliest known traces of ocher processing in East Asia and a set of leaf-shaped stone tools, Xiamabei contains cultural expressions and traits that are unique or extremely rare in Northeast Asia. Thanks to the collaboration of the international team of scholars, the analysis of the findings offers important new insights into cultural innovation during the expansion of Homo sapiens populations.

“Xiamabei is distinguished from any other known archaeological site in China as it possesses a novel set of cultural features at an early date”says Dr. Fa-Gang Wang of the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, whose team was the first to excavate the site.

“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, explains Dr. Shixia Yang, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, in Jena (Germany). “The findings of Xiamabei They help us understand these adaptations and their possible role in human migration.”

One of the most significant cultural traits found in Xiamabei it is the extensive use of ochre, as shown by the artifacts used to process large amounts of pigment. The artifacts include two pieces of ocher with different mineral compositions and an elongated slab of limestone with areas smoothed out with ocher stains, all on a red-stained sediment surface.

Analyzes carried out by researchers at the University of Bordeaux (France), led by Professor Francesco d’Errico, indicate that they were brought to Xiamabei different types of ocher and were processed by beating and abrasion to produce powders of different colors and consistency, whose use impregnated the floor of the house. The production of ocher in Xiamabei it represents the earliest known example of this practice in East Asia.

The stone tools of Xiamabei they represent a novel cultural adaptation for northern China 40,000 years ago. Since little was known about stone tool industries in East Asia until microblades became the dominant technology around 29,000 years ago, the findings of Xiamabei They provide important insight into the toolmaking industries during a key transition period.

Leaf shaped stone tools Xiamabei they were unique in the region, and the vast majority of them were miniaturized, since more than half measured less than 20 millimeters. Seven of the stone tools showed clear evidence of being attached to a handle, and functional and residue analyzes suggest that the tools were used for drilling, skin scraping, carving plant material, and cutting soft animal matter.

The inhabitants of the site made tools with handles and multipurpose tools, which demonstrates a complex technical system for the transformation of raw materials that is not observed in older or slightly younger sites.

The record that is emerging in East Asia shows that various adaptations were taking place when modern humans entered the region approximately 40,000 years ago. Although no hominid remains were found at Xiamabei, the presence of modern human fossils at the contemporary Tianyuandong site and at the slightly younger Salkhit and Zhoukoudian Upper Cave sites suggests that the visitors to Xiamabei were Homo sapiens.

Varied stone technology and the presence of some innovations, such as handled tools and ocher processing, but not other innovations, such as formal bone tools or ornaments, may reflect an early colonization attempt by modern humans .

This period of colonization may have included genetic and cultural exchanges with archaic groups, such as the Denisovans, before being replaced by later waves of Homo sapiens using microblade technologies.

Given the unique nature of Xiamabeithe authors of the new paper argue that the archaeological record does not fit with the idea of ​​continuous cultural innovation, or a fully formed set of adaptations that allowed early humans to expand out of Africa and around the world.

Rather, the authors argue, we should expect to find a mosaic of innovation patterns, with the diffusion of earlier innovations, the persistence of local traditions, and the local invention of new practices, all in a transition phase.

“Our findings show that current evolutionary scenarios are too simple,” says Professor Michael Petraglia.from the Max Planck Institute in Jena, “and that modern humans, and our culture, emerged through repeated but different episodes of genetic and social exchanges across large geographic areas, and not as a single rapid wave of dispersal across Asia.”