Prehistoric ‘Swiss Army knives’ are discovered in China, upending theory that ancient tech was a western import
- Relatively complex tools dating back 170,000 years challenge the idea that migration brought advanced techniques to prehistoric China
Forget clubs. Real “cave men” in China actually used complex tools as far back as 170,000 years ago, a new study says.
The ancient artefacts recently found at an archaeological site in China show that the relatively sophisticated tool technology emerged in East Asia much earlier than previously thought, challenging the idea that such advanced tool-making was introduced into Asia from the west.
Previously, archaeological records in China had suggested a jump from relatively primitive tools to relatively advanced ones, leading to the suggestion that the more advanced techniques had arrived via migration.
However, analyses of 2,273 stone artefacts from China’s Guanyindong Cave revealed 45 examples of so-called “mode III” craftsmanship – the transitional phase between the various techniques. Light-dating techniques aged them at 80,000 to 170,000 years old, or contemporary to mode III technology in the west.
Such tools – dubbed the “Swiss Army knife” of prehistoric tools – were efficient and durable, indispensable to a hunter-gatherer society in which a broken spear point could mean certain death at the claws or jaws of a predator.