Abstract: Hutouliang site is located in the Nihewan Basin near Hutouliang village of Yang Yuan County, Hebei Province in northern China. The site had been excavated from 1972 to 1974 for three successive seasons and a large number of artifacts including simple cores, discoid cores, pillar cores bipolar cores, wedge-shaped cores, choppers, scrapers, points, awls and adze-shaped tools, were collected from the site.
In this paper , 444 wedge2shaped cores unearthed from the Hutouliang site are studied using typological and statistical analyses. On the basis of the differences of core platforms, these wedge-shaped cores can be classified into two types. The platform of Type Ⅰis edge-shaped, whereas the platform of Type Ⅱis flat. According to the ratio between height and length, Type Ⅰcan be classified into two subtypes-subtype ⅠA and ⅠB . In the ⅠA subtype, its length is twice of its height. In the ⅠB subtype, its height is twice of its length. According to different strategies of making the platform, Type Ⅱcan be classified into two subtypes: ⅡA and ⅡB. The platform of subtype ⅡA is made by longitudinal striking, whereas the platform of subtype ⅡB is made by cross2wise striking.
The purpose of producing both types is to obtain microblades of lengths between 10—40mm, and widths of 3 —8mm. Raw materials include breccia, siliceous rhyolite, quartzite, jasper, agate, dacite, obsidian and crystal, with breccia and siliceous rock being the most important stone materials. These wedge-shaped cores made in different stages were abandoned for various reasons including reserving , exhausted and miscarriaging.

Key words: Hutouliang; Wedge-shaped microblade core; Purpose of flaking