Evidence Found of Human Beings Who Lived Some 20,000 Years Ago

Manawatu Times, Volume LIII, Issue 6735, 11 October 1928, Page 9

Evidence Found of Human Beings Who Lived Some 20,000 Years Ago

Men Hunted With Weapons of Stone, While the Women Wore Adornments—Colossal Beast Ate Itself Out of Existence.

PEIPING. Men armed with weapons of stone and women adorned with the spoils of I the hunt lived 20,000 years ago in what is now the - Gobi Desert, relics discovered by' the central Asiatic expedition led by Dr. Chapman Andrews indicate. Thousands of relics showed the numerous phases of the Stone Age culture to which these dune dwellers had attained. Traces of human beings dating back 130,000 years had been found previously in the same district. “These people -were wonderfully clever,” Dr. Andrews said. “They lived apparently in a transition period between the old and new stone ages. The countryside was saturated with people and they hunted arid fished in the lakes and streams and built shelters on the dunes of skins, bark and timbers. There are great areas of traces of these people, who lived thereabouts for thousands of years.” At the time they lived in-the area it was a fertile land.with trees and lakes and plentiful annual rainfall* Crude implements showed that ■ man was beginning to reach with stone results

which ho formerly accomplished solely with hands. Bones indicated the race subsisted chiefly on birds and frogs. There were traces of a breed of horses and asses, indicating that they used beasts of burden. Women Wore Adornments. Women wore necklaces of fox teeth and‘bone rings on their fingers or in the|r ears. For weapons, the' men had stolon/ knives , and arrow and spear, heads, of flint arid agate.- They pierced these with stone'drills. ' . ’ ' Brigands and. sand storms were the chief obstacles to the expedition." , , Sand came more- nearly to halting the expedition than the-brigands. Dr. Andrews said .the weather was, tho: worst he had ever encountered. In April and May the party was besieged day and night for six weeks by ;sand; storms, tho fine, flinty grains penetrating the tightest wrappings and most closely fitted cases. At times it was impossible to leave tho tents and the automobiles of the party ’were’ah most covered in sand drifts. ■