Harsh Ice Age Drove Technological Innovation, Study Suggests

Places well-endowed with natural resources don’t usually become great powers or world-conquering empires.

If anything, many suffer from the “resource curse”, which corrupts the domestic elite and invites foreign intervention, exploitation or outright colonisation.

Like people, communities or nations that have fought to overcome adversity and disadvantages often become the most successful. Challenges – whether natural, geographical, social or military – make them fighters and winners.

The site’s discovery in Henan province of remarkably inventive tools suggests that a harsh ice age drove technological innovation for an extinct human species, hypothetically named Homo juluensis.

Yuchao Zhao, lead author of a paper in the Journal of Human Evolution, noted that: “People often imagine creativity as something that flourishes in good times. Finding out that these stone tools were made during a harsh ice age tells a different story. Hard times can force us to adapt.”

He added: “The underlying logic of this system – and the cognitive abilities it reflects – shows important similarities to Middle Palaeolithic technologies often associated with Neanderthals in Europe and with human ancestors in Africa, suggesting that advanced technological thinking was not limited to Western Eurasia.”