New signs of Tibet's earliest humans found

Chinese archaeologists have uncovered the oldest signs of human activity on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at about 4,600 meters above sea level, showcasing the astonishing resilience of early humans who inhabited one of Earth's harshest environments tens of thousands of years earlier than expected.

Researchers from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have found more than 3,600 stone artifacts made from black slate at Nwya Devu, which is in the Changthang region of the Tibet autonomous region, about 300 kilometers northwest of the capital, Lhasa.

Most of the tools that were found underground were made around 30,000 to 40,000 years ago during the Stone Age. The toolmakers, whose identity remains a mystery, crafted blades and arrowlike flakes of stone, some of which are up to 20 centimeters long.