Abstract: It is a preliminary report on the result of an archaeological reconnaissance conducted during October-November 2002, by a field team organized by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing and the Cultural Relics and Archaeology Institute of Zhejiang Province in Hangzhou. One of the major achievements of the field survey is the discovery of Paleolithic artifacts for the first time in this coastal province, regarded by many as a signi- ficant breakthrough in archeological research in the region.
A total of 333 pieces of lithic artifacts were collected from 31 sites during the survey (Fig. 1 and Table 1). These sites were located in two countiesin the north of the province, namely the Anji Coun- ty and the Changxing County. Some artifacts were unearthed in situ from a layer of reticulated red clay, a geological unit typical of the Middle Pleistocene deposit in South China, and a layer of red soilon top of it, while some were collected from brick factories, earth-taking grounds where their original places can be traced to the red clay levels. Based on preliminary examination of the artifacts, general features of these collected materials can be summarized as:
1) The artifacts include cores, flakes, and retouched tools;
2) Almost all the artifacts are large and heavy;
3) Raw materialsinclude sandstone, quartzite, tuff, quart, flint, etc. Sandstone is the most frequently used material; Tool blanks are predominantly pebbles and cores ;In few cases, flakes were modified further into tools;
4) Flakes were produced by direct hammer percussion ;No core platform preparation was detected;
5) The category of tool includes chopper-chopping tools, picks, bifaces, spheroids, subsphe- roids, and scrapers. Chopper-chopping tool is the dominant type in the collection, followed by picks and subspheroids;
6) Most of the tools were crudely trimmed by hard hammer percussion ;the majority of the retouch occurred on dorsal surface of the blanks.
The characteristics of these artifacts discovered in North Zhejiang Province indicate that Paleolithic industries in that region are very similar to those found in the neighboring Anhui Province and Jiangsu Province. In general, they all demonstrate close affiliation to the Pebble-Tool Tradition in South China.
Based on stratigraphy, artifacts discovered from the reticulated red clay in the these two counties belong to the Middle Pleistocene, and specimens collected from red clays above it is estimated as the Upper Pleistocene. Materials in surface collections exhibit no traces of long-distance movement, and therefore can be assigned to these two geological stages respectively based on stratigraphical sequences where they were exposed. Systematic examination on the accurate age of the archaeological remains at these sites will be followed.
Zhejiang Province is very rich in Neolithic and historical archaeological remains and a very important place for studying the origin and development of early Chinese civilization in the Lower Yangtze River region. This discovery has profoundly prolonged the history of human adaptation in the area. It provides valuable data not only for the study of archaeological sequence in the region, but also for the study of the distribution and variability of the mainstream South China Paleolithic industry in general.

Key words: Zhejiang Province; Anji County, Changxing County; Paleolithic artifacts