I am quite skeptical of the claims of the article though. It is HIGHLY unlikely, IMHO, that there were humans running around 70K ago that had the exact same technology as those of only 19K ago. Modern humans make extrodinary advances in technology over geologically insignificant times. It is far from ironclad that these tools are even accurately dated. They could have even been buried by their makers in the sandy/silty ground. That would put them in a lower layer. There are no fossils to go with the tools- indeed there is a fossil gap around 70K ago that is striking.
The so-called moderns from 120-100K ago don't look like moderns to me. I have seen photos of the handful of skulls from that time. They are disticntly different from ours.
Add to this that even much more recent finds are from groups that have NO contribution to the modern gene pool. An article a few days ago spoke of DNA analysis on a 12,000 year old hair follicle from a dead (presumably)homo sapians. The owner was not a part of any extant human group.
Antidiluvian race? Dunno. But my point is that the case is far from ironclad that these tools were as old as they say, and even if they were no evidence to say that they were made by our ancestors.
Over historical times, human technological development has acted something like an exponential function. For much of human history, it was achingly slow. People died in approximately the same world they had been born into. No wonder the Book of Ecclesiastes asks who has ever seen a new thing! True novelty was very rare before, say, the Renaissance. The pace of innovation was halting through the Middle Ages, increased in the Rennaissance, climbed sharply through the Industrial Revolution, and has soared in the hi-tech present.
That's historical times. Pre-history figures to offer a near flat-line graph. Anything else would be a stunner.