In central China, scientists have spent over a decade excavating and studying the Lingjing archaeological site, a place where ancient humans once butchered animals. Amidst the fossilized bones, archaeologists have uncovered complex stone tools that would have required a significant level of intelligence and foresight to manufacture. A recent analysis, based on crystals growing inside one of the bones, has revealed that the site actually dates back to a harsh ice age 146,000 years ago. This discovery challenges long-held ideas that early humanity only became creative during warmer times of plenty, suggesting instead that Ice Age stone tools were a necessary adaptation for survival.
“People often imagine creativity as something that flourishes in good times,” explained Yuchao Zhao, the assistant curator of East Asian archaeology at the Field Museum in Chicago and the lead author of the paper describing the findings.
“Finding out that these stone tools were made during a harsh ice age tells a different story. Hard times can force us to adapt.”
A Closer Look at Homo juluensis and Their Tools
Zhao and his colleagues, led by senior author Zhangyang Li, a professor at Shandong University in China, have been examining the stone artifacts found at Lingjing. This site was occupied by an early human species called Homo juluensis. They were cousins of modern humans, and it is possible our ancestors may have interacted with them. Homo juluensis exhibited a striking mosaic of features, including a very large brain size and traits seen in both early humans in East Asia and Neanderthals in Europe.
Until recently, archaeologists believed that ancient humans in East Asia during the late Middle Pleistocene (300,000 to 120,000 years ago) had not made many significant technological advances compared to their contemporaries in Europe and Africa. However, the disc-shaped stone cores found at Lingjing tell a different story. While they might not look especially fancy at first glance, the team's analysis revealed that they were part of a painstaking and carefully organized tool-making process.
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The Complexity of Ice Age Stone Tools
The Homo juluensis people crafted these tools by striking small stones against larger stone cores. Some of these cores were worked fairly evenly on both sides, while others were more carefully structured. In the asymmetrical cores, one side served mainly as the surface to strike from, while the other side was shaped to produce sharp flakes. This indicates that these ancient humans were not just knocking pieces off a stone at random; they were managing the core as a three-dimensional object.
One of the 146,000-year-old stone cores used to make butcher's tools, found in Lingjing, China. (Yuchao Zhao/EurekAlert)
“This was not casual flake production, but a technology that required planning, precision, and a deep understanding of stone properties and fracture mechanics,” Zhao stated. “The underlying logic of this system—and the cognitive abilities it reflects—shows important similarities to Middle Paleolithic technologies often associated with Neanderthal tool technology in Europe and with human ancestors in Africa, suggesting that advanced technological thinking was not limited to western Eurasia.”
The artifacts left behind at Lingjing clearly suggest that the people there were capable of complex thought and creativity. But the story became even more intriguing when recent studies adjusted scientists’ estimates of exactly how long ago these Ice Age stone tools were made.
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A Natural Clock Hidden in Bone
Lingjing was a site where Homo juluensis came to butcher animals like deer, and the bones of these butchered animals are found alongside the stone tools. One of these bones, a rib from a deer-like animal, contained glittering calcite crystals. These crystals contain trace amounts of uranium, which slowly degrades into another element called thorium over time. By measuring the ratio of uranium to thorium present in a calcite crystal, scientists can accurately determine its age.
“The calcite crystals inside the bone acted like a natural clock, allowing us to refine the age of the site,” Zhao explained. Previously, researchers thought that the tools found in Lingjing were about 126,000 years old at most. However, based on the presence of the crystals, they are actually about 20,000 years older.
“Even though these tools are just a little bit older than we’d previously thought, the entire story is changed,” Zhao concluded. “During the Pleistocene, Earth repeatedly shifted between colder ice-age periods and warmer intervals between them. We used to think these tools were made 126,000 years ago, during a warm interglacial period, but based on the new dates suggested by the crystals, some of these tools were actually produced 146,000 years ago, during a harsh, cold glacial period.”
This new timeline suggests that for these Ice Age hunter-gatherers, creativity was not a luxury reserved for good times, but rather a vital adaptation for surviving incredibly difficult conditions.
Top image: Crystals growing inside a bone found at the Lingjing archaeological site; these crystals were used to date the site, and the tools found there, to an ice age 146,000 years ago. Source: Zhanyang Li / EurekAlert
By Gary Manners
References
Baisas, L. 2026. An extinct human species made surprisingly creative butchery tools. Popular Science. Available at: https://www.popsci.com/science/extinct-human-species-tools/
Field Museum. 2026. Ice Age butcher’s tools are a sign of ancient humans’ creativity during hard times. Field Museum Press Release. Available at: https://www.fieldmuseum.org/about/press/ice-age-butchers-tools-are-a-sign-of-ancient-humans-creativity-during-hard-times
Zhao, Y. et al. 2026. Earliest centripetal flaking system in eastern Eurasia reveals human behavioral complexity in late Middle Pleistocene China. Journal of Human Evolution. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0047248426000357
