The country's cultural properties authorities said Friday the first fossils of Paleolithic man in Asia have been discovered on South Korea's southern island of Jeju.

The Cultural Properties Administration confirmed that thousands of fossils of men and animals 50,000 years old were unearthed on the southern coast of the island last October, and are believed to belong to the Paleolithic age, following two on-site expert surveys.

Officials said this is only the world's seventh discovery of Paleolithic men's fossilized footprints, and the first in Asia.