Acta Anthropologica Sinica ›› 2017, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (01): 27-37.

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A preliminary report on the excavation of the Xiaogou Paleolithic site in Yunxian, Hubei province

ZHAO Hailong, XU Ting, WANG Li, SU Zuowei   

  • Online:2017-03-15 Published:2017-03-15

Abstract: The Xiaogou Paleolithic site, buried in the second terrace of the left bank of the Hanshui River, is located in the Xiaogou village, Anyang twon, Yunxian County, Hubei Province. The site was excavated from October 22 to December 20, 2010, by the Jilin Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. The excavation exposed an area of about 1500 m2, including two district(A and B) . A total of 413 stone artifacts were unearthed and most of them are from the exploration party T0101 of the B district. The stone assemblage includes cores, flakes, retouched tools, chunks, fragments and debris. Quartzite is the predominant raw material used for making stone artifacts. The principal flaking technique is direct hammer percussion without core preparation. There is a high percentage of flakes, chunks and fragments. Most stone artifacts are small in size. Most blanks for tool fabrication are flakes and retouched tools includes scrapers and drills. The stone assemblage shows close relationships with the Flake Tool Industry of North China. Out of a total of 376 stone artifacts, 16 refitted groups were identified. These sets include 36 elements. The refitting rate is about 10%. The high refitting rate and stone assemblage indicates that the Xiaogou site is an ancient lithic manufacturing workshop And its geochronology should be close to the Upper Pleistocene.

Key words: Late Pleistocene; Xiaogou site; Flake tool industry; Danjiangkou Reservoir region