Abstract: Between 1995 and 1999 the Longyadong cave site and 50 open air Paleolithic sites were investigated and excavated in the Luonan Basin of China. A total of 1?751 stone artifacts were collected from open air sites, and fossils from about 20 animal species as well as 65?000 lithic artifacts were excavated from the cave site. This paper provides a preliminary study of site lithic stratigraphics in their geological context as well as the results of thermoluminescence (TL) dating.
The TL dates of five soil samples place the sites into the middle to late period of the Middle Pleistocene (Q22—3). Upon further taking into account strata relationships, three cultural periods were identified in Longyadong cave. When compared with the TL dates and stratigraphy from Zhoukoudian Locality 1, loess deposits in Shaanxi Luochuan, red earth in Anhui and deep sea records, Longyadong is in the range of 500—250 kyr, approximately the same timeframe as Zhoukoudian Locality 1.

Key words: Stratigraphy; TL dating; Paleolithic; Longyadong Cave; Open air Sites; Luonan Basin