Stone tools from Guangdong may be older than Peking Man

Tools discovered by archaeologists in Guangdong indicate that the apemen who used them could be earlier than Peking Man, one of the earliest human ancestors in China. Archaeologists working in Mount Modao have uncovered more than 350 artifacts, which they believe date to the early phase of the Stone Age, the Southern Metropolis Daily reported.
“It’s the first time so many artifacts in Guangdong, which are similar to [artifacts of] Peking Man, have been discovered. There is a high possibility that they are older than Peking Man,” Xia Zhengkai, professor at Peking University, told the newspaper.
All the artifacts are stone tools, mostly axes and pickaxes, which experts believe were used by the apemen.
The tools were unearthed after three months of work. Archaeologists from around the country arrived in Guangdong on Wednesday to join discussions on the artifacts.
Archaeologists and anthropologists have yet to decide in what period the Guangdong apemen lived. But an archaeologist from Hunan said it’s possible they lived 700,000 to 800,000 years ago. But archaeologists haven’t yet found any fossils of the apemen, which makes further discussions about early human ancestors in Guangdong difficult – such as what they looked like.
It’s the first discovery of artifacts dating to the early Stone Age in Guangdong. These artifacts serve as stratigraphic evidence of early human activity. Wang Youping, leader of the excavation team at Mount Modao, said the apemen who lived there are ancestors of modern-day Guangdong people.
Peking Man, known from fossils found at Zhoukoudian near Beijing, was identified as a member of the human lineage in 1927. The fossils date from about 770,000 to 230,000 years ago, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica.