50,000 B.C. there lived by these lakes a hunting people whose stone
implements (and a few of bone) have been found in many places. The
implements are comparable in type with the palaeolithic implements of
Europe (Mousterian type, and more rarely Aurignacian or even
Magdalenian). They are not, however, exactly like the European
implements, but have a character of their own. We do not yet know what
the men of these communities looked like, because as yet no indisputable
human remains have been found. All the stone implements have been found
on the surface, where they have been brought to light by the wind as it
swept away the loess. These stone-age communities seem to have lasted a
considerable time and to have been spread not only over North China but
over Mongolia and Manchuria. It must not be assumed that the stone age
came to an end at the same time everywhere. Historical accounts have
recorded, for instance, that stone implements were still in use in
Manchuria and eastern Mongolia at a time when metal was known and used
in western Mongolia and northern China. Our knowledge about the
palaeolithic period of Central and South China is still extremely
limited; we have to wait for more excavations before anything can be
said. Certainly, many implements in this area were made of wood or more
probably bamboo, such as we still find among the non-Chinese tribes of
the south-west and of South-East Asia. Such implements, naturally, could
not last until today.

About 25,000 B.C. there appears in North China a new human type, found
in upper layers in the same caves that sheltered Peking Man. This type
is beyond doubt not Mongoloid, and may have been allied to the Ainu, a
non-Mongol race still living in northern Japan. These, too, were a
palaeolithic people, though some of their implements show technical
advance. Later they disappear, probably because they were absorbed into
various populations of central and northern Asia. Remains of them have