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TOOLS from northern China were crafted 1.36 million years ago, making them
the earliest solid evidence of people living there.

In 1980, more than 3000 stone flakes were discovered in the Nihewan Basin.
But only now has accurate dating of the tools been possible. A team led by
Rixiang Zhu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing dated them from the
pattern of magnetic fields in sediments where they were found. Reversals in the
Earth’s magnetic field, whose timing is known, are recorded in these
patterns.

The tools are 1.36 million years old, the oldest clear evidence of people in
that part of Asia (Nature, vol 413, p 413). At this time, the region
suffered periods of drought, which suggests that Homo erectus—the
species likely to have made the tools—coped well with the hardship of
uncertain climates after emerging from the tropics.