Paleolithic ruins suggest Mousterian culture in China

0 Comment(s)Print E-mail Xinhua, November 17, 2017
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Paleolithic stone tools in the Mousterian style have been found in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, despite the culture generally being associated with Neanderthals from the Old Stone Age in Europe, Central and West Asia, and Northeast Africa.

Carbon-14 dating has determined that the site in East Ujimqin Banner, is between 37,000 and 47,000 years old.

Li Feng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences institute of vertebrate paleontology and paleoanthropology said the excavation may indicate that Neanderthals living between 120,000 and 30,000 years ago in Europe and West Asia moved further east than Siberia as previously thought. The site in Inner Mongolia is 2,000 km southeast of Siberia.

Li said the hypothesis needs to be tested by DNA tests of human bones, but, no traces of human remains have yet been found in the ruins.

Stone tools were excavated with sharpened heads and scrapers with "Levallois Points," resembling the Mousterian style, which have never been found before among stone relics of a similar period in China.

Mousterian style ruins are known in Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

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