by 
A lot of rare 300,000 years old wood tools in southwestern China shows that early people in the region may have rely on underground plants such as roots and tubers for food.
The results published on Thursday in the journal ScienceLight up the advanced cognitive skills of early human ancestors in East Asia and their life, diet and the environment.
This rare find was created on the basis of the wooden tools, which were kept in oxygen tone sediments at the archaeological lakeshore position of Gantangqing in Jiangchuan, province of Yunnan.
The researchers also found almost 1,000 organic remains among the sediments.
With the help of advanced techniques, scientists dated the determined provisions to establish the age of the tools between 250,000 and 350,000 years.
The “extremely rare” wooden tools that occur in shape and functional types were extracted from layers from the age of around 300,000 years, say scientists.
So far, only two previously known discoveries from wood tools have been made from this time – one in Europe and one in Africa.
Two of the newly discovered sticks seemed to be seen similarly to Italy’s Poggetti Vecchi location, which were at 171,000 years old.
Four unique hook -shaped tools were also uncovered and probably used to cut roots, say scientists.
The researchers also found signs of deliberate polishing on the wooden tools, stencils and floor residues on the tool edges, which indicates that they were used to dig underground plants such as tubers and roots.
“The wooden devices include ditch and small, complete, hand -tensioned tools,” wrote the scientists.
Based on these findings, the scientists suspect that these East Asian human ancestors have probably followed a vegetable diet, with signs of pine nuts, hazelnuts, kiwi fruits and aquatic tubers that were found on site.
In comparison, the wooden tools exposed in Europe and Africa were hunting devices, spears and spearheads.
“The discovery calls for earlier assumptions about the early adaptation of man. While contemporary European sites (how Schönnen in Germany) focused on the hunt of large mammals, Gantangqing shows a unique vegetable survival strategy in the subtropics,” said archaeologist Bo Li, a co-author of the study.
“The diversity and sophistication of the wooden tools also closes a significant gap in archaeological recording, since 100,000-year-old wooden tools outside of Africa and West EURASIA are extremely rare,” said Dr. Li.
The discovery shows that wooden tools were used by early people in a much wider area around the world.
It also indicates that prehistoric cultures that live in various environments developed tools that are useful for them locally.
