A Preliminary Report on Excavation at Shuidonggou Locality 8 in Ningxia Hui
Autonomous Region, North China
WANG Chunxue, FENG Xingwu, WANG Huimin, PEI Shuwen, CHEN Fuyou,
ZHANG Xiaoling, GUAN Ying, GAO Xing
2015, 34(04):
478-491.
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Shuidonggou Locality 8, one of the Shuidonggou site clusters found in 2003, is located on the right side of a tributary (Biangou River) of Yellow River. Its geographical position is 38°17′29″ N, 106°31′3″ E and lies at an altitude of 1200m. A joint archaeological team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and the Ningxia Provincial Institute of Archaeology conducted a series of excavations in 2003. The excavated area of 16 m2 was exposed and three archaeological layers (more than 3.5m in thickness) were identified. The strata are described as follows: Layer 1: Yellowish and grayish silt. 0.15m in thickness; Layer 2: Light yellowish silt, planar bedding, blocky structure, calcareous cement with some nodules and charcoal, firm. Contains Upper Paleolithic stone artifacts, animal fossils and ostrich eggshell beads. 0.4-0.5m in thickness; Layer 3: Light fine sand, planar bedding, blocky structure. 2.75-2.85m in thickness, not to the bottom. A total of 801 artifacts were collected from the site, mostly from the yellowish silt stratum (Layer 2). Lithic artifacts (n=776) included flakes (n=733), cores (14), chunks (n=15), retouched tools (n=11) and small pebbles (n=3). The general characteristics of the stone assemblage are summarized as follows: Raw materials included quartz sandstone, chert, siliceous dolomite quartz and siliceous volcanic rock with quartz sandstone being the predominant material (44.2%), followed by siliceous dolomite and chert. Flakes represented 91.51% of the total assemblage with complete flakes numbering 195 and incomplete flakes numbering 86. Platform types were cortex and plain, followed by linear, scarred cutting platforms. There were eight percussion cores and six bipolar cores. Platforms of the percussion cores were mainly artificial, followed by cortex platform. Primary reduction was hard hammer percussion, followed by bipolar flaking. Other than flakes and cores, there were also chunks, scrapers (primarily single-edged), two stone hammer, an anvil, a burin and a chopper. Blanks for tool fabrication were flakes, followed by chunks. Modified tools appeared to be retouched by hammer percussion usually on the dorsal surface, followed by the ventral surface, multiple direction and alternating retouch opposite retouch. Most tools were finely retouched with types standardized. Tools were generally small. The direction of perforation on the ostrich eggshell beads was mainly from the inside surface, followed by both sides. This research provides interpretive inferences on the techno-typology of stone tools, ostrich eggshell beads manufacture and human adaptive behavior (e.g., on-site spatial use) at the Shuidonggou Locality 8. These cultural materials belong to flake tool industry (main industry) in North China, specifically Upper Palaeolithic with a 14C date of 31323±101 BP.
