Chinese archaeologists suggest harsh environments, not warm climates, may have driven early human creativity. Research on a 146,000-year-old site in Henan province reveals inventive tools used by an extinct human species.

Archaeologists in central China have directly challenged the long-held belief that humanity’s earliest ancestors reached their creative peak during warm and hospitable climates. For more than a decade, a team of researchers in Henan province has studied a 146,000-year-old animal-butchering site once inhabited by Homo juluensis, an extinct human species that lived about 300,000 years ago in eastern Asia. Their discovery of remarkably inventive tools suggests that these ancient cousins of Homo...