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The Nihewan Basin in North China contains the densest concentration of early Pleistocene Paleolithic sites outside Africa. This paper introduces a new archaeological site complex at Madigou (MDG) that was systematically excavated from 2011 to 2014 in the northeastern part of the Nihewan Basin. The site contains fossils and well-preserved stone artefacts in fluvio-lacustrine sediments. Our magnetostratigraphic results situate the MDG sedimentary sequence in the early Brunhes normal chron and the late Matuyama reverse chron, including the Jaramillo normal subchron. The MDG artifact layers are positioned within the pre-Jaramillo Matuyama chron, with an estimated age of ca. 1.2 Ma, close to the onset of Mid-Pleistocene climate transition. The MDG core and flake technology includes bipolar flaking of siliceous dolomite cobbles, and freehand flaking of chert and brecciated chert block fragments. Mammalian fauna and pollen compositions indicate that the MDG hominins lived in an open habitat varying from lightly-wooded grassland to an ecosystem dominated by sparse steppe near the shore of the Nihewan paleolake. Our combined results in the fields of archaeology, paleontology, palynology and magnetochronology suggest that innovations in technological behavior may correlate with adaptations to high environmental variability during the start of Mid-Pleistocene climate transition. • Nihewan in north China is a key area for research on the early human occupation out of Africa. • Madigou (MDG) is a newly discovered Early Pleistocene site complex in the Nihewan Basin. • Magnetostratigraphic results show that early humans occupied the MDG site ca. 1.2 Ma. • MDG hominins lived in an open habitat and practiced a core and flake technology. • Human adaptations correlate with climate variability during the onset of the Mid-Pleistocene transition (MPT). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]