Abstract:

The Xiamabei Paleolithic site is located on the second terrace of the Huliu River, in the southeast edge of the Yuxian Basin, a part of the Nihewan Basin. In 2013, archaeologists from the Hebei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology carried out excavations at the site, uncovering a wealth of cultural remains. Since 2018, several institutions at home and abroad have jointly conducted systematic and multidisciplinary research on the stratigraphy, chronology, taphonomic process, paleoenvironment and cultural remains of Xiamabei. The excavation uncovered an area of 12 m², with a depth of about 290 cm. The stratigraphy encompasses seven main layers in a floodplain environment. Layer 6, the main cultural horizon, is dated approximately 41-39 ka by AMS ¹⁴C and optically stimulated luminescence. Here we report the results of archaeological findings from Layer 6 of Xiamabei, mainly including 382 stone artifacts, 445 animal bones, a single bone tool, a charcoal-rich hearth and evidence for ochre use and processing. A variety of scientific methods were used to identify the ochre and the sediment staining, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), micro Raman spectroscopy (MR), micro-X-ray fluorescence (Micro-XRF), mineral magnetism (MM), and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive spectroscopy (SEM-EDS). Among them, mineral magnetism (MM) was, for the first time, applied on the anthropogenic ochre. With respect to the study of the stone tools, we conducted technological, microscopic use-wear and residue studies. The results indicated that stone tool manufacture was aimed towards production of small items, including blade-like forms with these miniaturized pieces hafted. The interdisciplinary research on the Xiamabei site provide us a vivid picture of hunter-gathers’ lifestyle 40,000 years ago in North China. People were living in a cool, steppe-like environment, and at Xiamabei they conducted activities around a warm campfire, grinding ochre powder for economic purposes, hafting blade-like stone tools to conduct a variety of tasks including hide and plant processing, and mostly likely, sharing food, including meat that they hunted. The Xiamabei site possesses a novel set of cultural characteristics, such as the earliest evidence of ochre processing, a unique miniaturized lithic technology with bladelet-like forms and hafted items. Located at the transition zone between the Inner Mongolian Plateau and the North China Plain, the site offers important new insights into the expansion of H. sapiens along the northern route.

Key words: Nihewan Basin, Xiamabei site, hafting, ochre, early modern humans