Equal to Africa Views of both sides of one of the hand axes found in southeast China. Dated to 800,000 years old, the tools show that the hominids in Asia were as skilled in shaping tools as those in Africa. The crafted stone tools, found in southern China near the border with Vietnam, are more refined and older than cutting tools previously found in the East Asian region. The stone tools were found in southeast China, near the Vietnam border.
Most researchers agree that the first humans to make tools lived in Africa.
Simple stone tools have been found there dated to about 2.5 million years. About a million years later, more sophisticated tools, with teardrop shaped with double sharp edges, appeared. Such tools, dated at about 500,000 years ago, have been found in Europe, also, but have never before been found and reliably dated in east Asia. For decades, this absence has caused anthropologists to speculate that early humans in Asia were less sophisticated and inventive than those elsewhere. Supposed Technological Divide A Harvard University anthropologist, Hallam Movius, designated Stone Age Asia as backward and 50 years ago divided the ancient world into halves based on Stone Age tool-making skill.