Our colleague Bo Li, at the University of Wollongong, used optical luminescence dating methods on the layers of earth that contained the artifacts. This technique can identify how much time has passed since each individual sand grain was last exposed to the sun. Dating many individual grains in a sample is important because tree roots, insects, or other animals can mix younger sediments down into older ones.
After we identified and removed intrusive younger grains, we found the layers containing the artifacts were 50,000 to 60,000 years old. This is roughly the same time Quina scrapers were being used in Europe at Neanderthal sites.
Keliang Zhao, from China’s Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, looked at pollen grains from the Longtan excavations. He found that the Middle Paleolithic people of Longtan lived in a relatively open forest-grassland environment and a dry and cool climate. This environment is similar to that of Quina sites in Europe.
Davide Delpiano, Marco Peresani, and Marie-Hélène Moncel, experts on European Middle Paleolithic tools, joined our team to help with the comparison of the Chinese and European specimens and confirm their similarities.
Hélène Monod, from Universidad Rovira i Virgili in Spain, looked at our Quina scrapers under the microscope and found traces on them from scraping and scratching bones, antlers, and wood. She also found polish from using the tools on meat, hides, and soft plants.
WHO LIVED IN EAST ASIA DURING THIS PERIOD?
Our new discovery of Quina scrapers joins another recent find of a different kind of Middle Paleolithic technology in East Asia: Levallois tools from Guanyindong Cave in Guizhou Province in south-central China. Levallois tools result from a distinctive multistep sequence that efficiently produces lots of useful cutting tools, with minimal wasted stone. Taken together, these two finds make a strong case that Middle Paleolithic technologies were present in East Asia.
But why are we only just now finding this Quina tool kit, when it has been known in Europe for such a long time?
One reason is that archaeologists have been looking in Europe for longer than almost anywhere else in the world. Another reason Middle Paleolithic evidence appears rare in East Asia is because what now seem to be less typical variations of the Quina tool kit previously found in China had been overlooked, likely due to archaeologists’ narrow definitions based on European examples.
The Quina tools at Longtan are among the earliest artifacts from that site, which makes it hard for researchers to determine the origins of this new technology. Was it introduced by visitors from Europe? Or did local people in East Asia independently invent it?
