关键词: 南家沟遗址, 细石叶技术, 磨制骨针, 旧石器时代晚期晚段, 怀来盆地

Abstract:

The Nanjiagou Paleolithic site, which was first excavated in 2015, has the lithic assemblages predominantly characterized by microblade technology. The site was re-excavated in 2016, uncovering an area of approximately 25 m². Three ash-heaps and a total of 2407 labeled specimens incorporated stone specimens, animal fossils, bone needles, ostrich eggshells and ornaments. The AMS¹⁴C dating indicated that the age of this site was 17~16 cal kaBP, which also put the site to the late stage of Upper Paleolithic in northern China. The general features of lithic assemblage include: 1) The bipolar knapping technique was exclusively applied to volcanic breccia and chert, while end scrapers were predominantly made of chert, followed by volcanic breccia and high-quality dolostone. Field survey showed that raw materials were mainly quarried from the gravel layers around the site, whereas the volcanic breccia was not unearthed in the basin, which might be transported from a distance. It could be concluded that the inhabitants exploited materials on a wide scale, and use high-quality stone effectively. 2) The categories of 1629 lithic assemblages include free-hand cores (n=11; 0.7%), microblade cores (n=99; 6%), bipolar cores (n=3; 0.1%), free-hand flakes (n=977; 60%), microblades (n=53; 3.3%), microblade by-products (n=71; 4.4%), bipolar flakes (n=5; 0.3%), retouched tools (n=79; 4.8%), chunks (n=331; 20.3%), with small in size. 3) The free-hand cores were made by direct hammer percussion and most flakes were produced from non-cortical platforms (91%), which indicated that they were mostly secondary flake products. All the microblade cores were wedge-shaped cores, with small size, and their refitted groups discovered at Nanjiagou site could reflect the technological procedure of knapping strategy. 4) The retouched tools made of chert could be classified into side scrapers, burins, notch, end scrapers, points, spearheads, adze-shaped tools, and choppers. Most of animal fossils were in poor condition and the fauna assemblage included Cervus sp., Equus sp., Aves, Antelopinae, Rodentia, Carnivora and Bovidae, etc. The discovery of microblade technology, ostrich eggshell ornaments, and fire relices at Nanjiagou was the first excavated and reported Paleolithic cultural remains in the Huailai Basin. And the bone needles provided the earliest evidence for its occurrence across the Nihewan Basin. The discovery of this site has provided important clues for the Late Pleistocene lithic technology sequence in the Huailai Basin and even across North China, as well as for the academic issues related to ancient human subsistence strategies and cultural interactions.

Key words: Nanjiagou site, microblade technology, bone needles, Late Upper Paleolithic, Huailai Basin