Abstract: The Huaishuping site, found in 1999, is located on the fourth terrace of the South Luohe River in the Luonan Basin, Shaanxi Province. In 2013, it was excavated by a joint archaeological team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Shaanxi Province Institute of Archaeology, Nanjing University, and the Museum of Luonan County. The excavation exposed a total area of 56m2, yielding 830 stone artifacts. The lithic assemblage includes manuports (n=19; 2.29％ ), cores (n=66; 7.95%), flakes (n=333; 40.12%), chunks (n=347; 41.81%), chips (n=23; 2.77%), and retouched tools (n=42; 5.06%) such as choppers (n=3), hand-axes (n=2), and scrapers(n=37). The general features of the lithic artifacts are summarized as follows: (i) Stone artifacts from the site were made of local raw materials which come from the cobbles/pebbles of the river deposits which are mainly quartz and quartzite, although greywacke and fine sandstone are also occasionally used; (ii) Most stone artifacts are small (<50mm) and medium (50~100mm) in size, but finely retouched tools such as hand-axes, are large in size; (iii) The principle knapping method is direct hammer percussion, along with the bipolar method and the anvil-chipping method; (iv) The tools are mainly retouched flakes. Cores, pebbles and chunks are also occasionally used as blanks. Most tools are small (<50mm) or medium (50~100mm) in size, and the Acheulian-type large cutting tools (LCTs) such as handaxes are finely retouched. OSL chronological analysis and the comparison of geological profiles show that the date of the site is between 90 to 13ka, and the main layers which contained the lithic artifacts are about 90-80ka.

Key words: Luonan Basin; Huaishuping Site; Fourth Terrace; Paleolithic; Late Pleistocene