中国手斧等大型切割工具研究的回顾与思考

doi:10.16359/j.1000-3193/AAS.2024.0104

摘要/Abstract

摘要：

以手斧、薄刃斧、手镐、大型石刀为代表的大型切割工具，是人类历史上最早的标准化、定型化工具，其出现反映着人类认知能力和技术水平的飞跃。20世纪50年代以来，中国境内的汾河谷地、百色盆地、洛南盆地、丹江口库区等多个区域相继发现了不少大型切割工具，它们长期受到考古研究者的关注，同时，围绕着这些遗存也产生了不少的讨论和争议。本文在简要梳理中国大型切割工具的发现的基础上，从研究者们重点关注的中国是否存在手斧、中国大型切割工具的生产策略、大型切割工具所反映的人类社会行为及中国大型切割工具与旧大陆阿舍利工业的关系这几个问题入手，回顾已有的讨论与研究成果，并在现有研究的基础上对中国大型切割工具的年代问题和区域性特征提出思考。

关键词: 大型切割工具, 阿舍利工业, 年代框架, 区域特征

Abstract:

Large cutting tools like handaxes, cleavers, picks and knives are the earliest standardized tools in human history, and their emergence reflects the leap in human cognitive ability and technological skills. Handaxes have been reported since the 1930s by foreign and domestic researchers, but at that time, both the number of discoveries and the extent of discussions were very limited. Since the 1950s, an increasing number of large cutting tools have been discovered in multiple regions in China like the Fen River Valley, Bose Basin, Luonan Basin, and Danjiangkou Reservoir Region. These assemblages have long received the attention of archaeologists, and at the same time, disagreements and controversies have arisen around them.

Based on a brief overview of the discoveries of large cutting tools in China, this paper intends to review the history and current situation of the study. Archaeologists have mainly focused on several issues, namely, whether handaxes existed in China, the manufacturing strategies of Chinese large cutting tools, the human behaviors reflected in these tools, and the relationship between Chinese large cutting tools and the Acheulean in the Old World.

Furthermore, this paper puts forward some reflections on the large cutting tools in China, specifically the chronological issues and regional diversities, to better interpret the information on human activities behind them. On the chronological issues, it must be noticed that current dating results show that the earliest Acheulean-like assemblage in China dates to around 900~800 kaBP, while the latest ones only date to about 30 kaBP, and there’s a missing link from 600~300 kaBP. This may be explained by the unbalance of fieldwork or the incompetence of current dating methods, but it is also possible that there are two different periods in which large cutting tools prevailed.

Regarding the regional diversity of large cutting tools, more attention also needs to be paid to the quantitative comparisons and comparative study of technological details of large cutting tools from different regions. Meanwhile, future researchers should also notice the differences of other cores, flakes, and small tools that co-exist with large cutting tools in different regions, to better understand the toolkits used by ancient humans.

At last, when comparing large cutting tools in China to those in Africa and the West of Eurasia, it is necessary to conduct the comparison based on individual regions instead of treating discoveries from different regions of China or of the Western Old World as a whole and simply compare the “east” and the “west”.

Key words: large cutting tools, Acheulean, chronological frame, regional characteristics

中图分类号:

K871

胡好玥. 中国手斧等大型切割工具研究的回顾与思考[J]. 人类学学报, 2025, 44(02): 301-315.

HU Haoyue. Review and reflection on the study of hand axes and other large cutting tools in China[J]. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 2025, 44(02): 301-315.

图/表 2

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