Abstract: The Shuiniuwa Paleolithic site, buried in the third terrace of the left bank of the Hanshui River, is located in the Guanmenyan village, Juxian County, Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province. The site was excavated from March to April 2010, with scholars from the Research Center of Chinese Frontier Archaeology, Jilin University, as a salvageable archaeological project due to the construction of the Danjiangkou Reservoir dam. The excavation exposed an area of about 675m2. Four stratigraphic layers of the third terrace were identified at the site, with the total thickness of more than 1.2 meters. Archaeological materials were mainly unearthed from the 2nd and 3rd layers, two layers of brown-yellow clay and red-brown clay. A total of 301 stone artifacts were unearthed. The stone assemblage includes cores (N=13), flakes (N=43), chunks (N=162), pebbles (N=2) and retouched tools (N=83). General features of these artifacts from the two excavation areas are summarized as follows: 1) Lithic raw materials were locally available from ancient riverbeds, including quartz and hornfel. 2) The principal flaking technique was direct hammer percussion without core preparation, followed by bipolar technique. 3) Most stone artifacts were small and medium in size. 4) Most blanks for tool fabrication were flakes. Several retouched tool types were identified, including scrapers, borers, burins, chopper and a polishing tool in the upper cultural layer, and scrapers, hand axes and choppers in the lower cultural layer. 5) Modified tools appeared to be retouched by direct hammer percussion, mostly bificially retouched on one end of the blank. 6) The miniaturization trend of retouched tools was noted. It can be inferred from the excavation that the stone assemblage shows close relationship with the Pebble Tool Industry (Main Industry) in South China, but bears characteristics of the Flake Tool Industry of North China. Geomorphological and chronological comparison of the upper reaches of the Hanshui River valley indicates that the geochronology of the site should be close to the Middle Pleistocene (lower cultural layer) and the late stage of the Late Pleistocene (upper cultural layer). Excavation of the Shuiniuwa site not only enriches the human occupation data from the Hanshui River system, but also bears great significance in studying human occupation behaviors in the Middle Pleistocene. Therefore, it is affirmed that the coming excavation of this Paleolithic locality and Paleolithic research in the Hanshui River system will give more evidence to the study of early human culture, early human migration and clarify the cultural relationship between North and South China during Middle Pleistocene.

Key words: Stone artifact; Shuiniuwa; Danjiangkou Reservoir; Middle Pleistocene