作为广义泥河湾盆地的重要组成部分,蔚县盆地也曾是更新世期间古人类生存活动的重要地区。2019-2020年度在蔚县盆地开展了新一轮的旧石器考古调查工作,发现并确认18处旧石器和动物化石地点,获得35件石制品以及少量动物化石。从文化遗存的出露层位来看,泥河湾河湖相地层和黄土堆积是遗物埋藏的主要地貌部位。石制品类型包括石锤、石核（含细石核）、废片和工具;原料以火山岩、燧石和石英岩为主;石核剥片和工具修理均主要采用锤击法。技术类型总体上包含了简单石核石片技术和细石叶技术两套组合。结合相关地貌、地层对比资料以及石制品的类型特征,初步推测新地点的时代分别为中更新世和晚更新世,其中含细石叶技术制品地点的年代应为晚更新世晚期。

Yuxian basin, located in the southeast part of the Nihewan basin (senso lato) in Hebei Province, is an important area occupied by early hominins during Pleistocene. This report presents some preliminary results of the new Paleolithic survey conducted by the staff from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences and Hebei Normal University from 2019 to 2020 in Yuxian basin. A total of 18 Pleistocene localities including 16 Paleolithic localities and 2 mammalian fossil localities, were newly discovered and confirmed, and 35 stone artifacts and a few mammalian fossil fragments were collected. The Paleolithic and fossil remains are buried in the Nihewan lacustrine sediments and loess. Typologically, the stone artifacts collected from these Paleolithic localities include hammerstone, cores (including microblade cores), debitage (whole flakes, flake fragments and chunks) and tools. The raw materials for stone knapping are dominated by volcanic rocks, followed by cherts and quartzite. The principal flaking and retouching technique were hard hammer percussion, while soft hammer had probably also been used when modifying bifacial preforms of wedge-shaped microblade cores. Based on the technological and typological characteristics of these stone artifacts, two different assemblages of lithic artifacts have been identified, one is a core-flake assemblage characterized by simple cores, flakes, lightly-retouched tools etc.; the other is a microblade assemblage characterized by wedge-shaped microblade cores. Based on the geomorphological and stratigraphic comparison in the Nihewan basin and the technological traits of lithic assemblage, it can be inferred that these new 18 discovered localities may be assigned to the Middle Pleistocene (n=4) and the Late Pleistocene (n=14). Furthermore, the two microlithic localities are more likely formed during the late Upper Pleistocene based on the comparison with the similar finds (Youfang site and Ma’anshan site) in the Nihewan basin of Yangyuan county.