Advanced opinions on the stratigraphy and chronology of Baise stone industry
Huang Weiwen, Leng Jian, Yuan Xiaofeng, Xie Guangmao
1990, 9(02):
105-112.
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69 pieces of stone artifacts unearthed from the primary laterite in the lateritized terrace of the Youjiang River in the Baise basin, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in winter 1988 are the first clear evidence of stratification of the palcolithic site in South Asia which have drawn much attention for containing relatively large number of handaxes since the first one was discovered in 1973. Although. these artifacts are just a small number compared to thousands of specimens collected from the surface, we believe the stratum of the main part of Baise artifacts belongs to the laterite owing to the facts that the specimens collected on the surface of the eroded laterite and they are quite similar in technology and typology.
ln the terrace sequence of the Youjiang River, normal laterite can only be seen over the basal gravel of the fourth terrace and is a component of the terrace. Lateritized terrace is widely found in the valleys of several big rivers in South Asia, such as the Yangtze R., the Pearl R. (the Youjiang River is its tributary), the Chao Phraya R. in Thailand, the Irrawaddy R. in Burma and also possibly the Indus R. in Pakistan. From the lateritized terrace along these rivers, artifacts of early paleolithic have been unearthed, such as “Early Anyathian 1” along the Irrawaddy R., “Large crude flakes of Pre-Soan” along the Soan R. (a tributary of the Indus R.), Ban Mae Tha artifacts along the Wang R. (a tributary of the Chao Phraya R.) and the discoveries in the valleys of the Yangtze R. and the Pearl R.
While making investigations of the Cenozoic geology in Guangxi and Guangdong in the south most of China mainland, in the 1930s Tehdard de Chardin, c. c. Young and others, paid special attention to laterite. They thought that there existed a period in South China in the Late Cenozoic in which the weather was extremely wet and warm and the river deposits covering the Tertiary lake beds had been strongly laterized in some basins. They call this period “the most conspicuous event noticeable in the Cenozoic of South China”. According to the study of neotectonism, morphology and various facts of the change of the weather environment of the pleistocene, the authors think that the period of strong laterization in South Asia may belong to the early Peking Man period (the Middle Pleistocene) dating back to about 600 000-400 000 years ago. And the depositional age of the laterized terrace, i.e., Baise artifacts, Early Anyathian 1, Pre-Soan “large crude flakes” and Ban Mae Tha etc, may be equivalent to Lantian man period (late Early Pleistocene), dating back to about 1 000 0000 to 730 000 years ago. The results of Paleomagnetic dating and K-Ar dating of the laterized gravel of Ban Mae Tha and Paleomagnetic dating of the lateritized terrace of lower Yangtze R. have strongly testified to the above judgment.
