Stone Age folk in Asia adapted to extremes
By Bruce Bower
The Chang Tang Nature Reserve, situated 12,000 feet above sea level in the northwestern part of China’s Tibetan Plateau, features bitter cold, sparse vegetation, cutting winds, and little water. Scientists have now obtained preliminary evidence that people nonetheless colonized this forbidding territory near the end of the Stone Age.
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The discovery of stone tools and spear points, as well as the remains of temporary camps dated to between 12,000 and 11,000 years ago, indicates that late-Stone Age groups adapted to some of the planet’s harshest environments, says archaeologist P. Jeffrey Brantingham of the Santa Fe (N.M.) Institute.