Abstract:

In October 2020, an investigation along the Jinghe River valley in Shaanxi Province was carried out by the School of Cultural Heritage at Northwest University. A total of 15 localities were newly discovered in Changwu, Liquan and Jingyang counties. Almost 300 stone artifacts were buried in the 4th terrace of the right bank of the Jinghe River with some artifacts also surface collected. Raw materials were procured from gravels at the bottom of this terrace. High quality quartzite dominates the raw material. Almost all surface lithics were covered by a thin calcareous concretion. Most stone artifacts were manufactured by free hand hammer percussion, followed by bipolar technique. Technologically, the stone artifacts can be classified into cores, flakes and scrapers, etc. The lithic assemblage is assigned to the flake tool industry of North China, while centripetal exploitation cores, deeply modified scrapers and a high degree symmetry discoid show obvious advanced flaking technique. Judging from the artifacts buried in the Malan Loess (corresponding to MIS 3), the age of this early human occupation from the middle to lower reaches of the Jinghe River is no later than Late Pleistocene.

Key words: Archaeology, Lithics, Late Pleistocene