Abstract:

Banjingzi site, located in the eastern margin of the Nihewan Basin, is considered one of the most significant occurrences that formed during the early Late Pleistocene in North China. Since its discovery in 1984, several excavations have been conducted at this site. In 2015, a new excavation project was organized by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (IVPP), in collaboration with the Institute of Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics. This project uncovered an area of 36 m², resulting in the discovery of 4417 specimens. These specimens include stone artifacts, animal bones (excluding sieved pieces), and natural pebbles (L≥50 mm) from layers 4, 5, and 6. Analysis of site formation processes indicates that layer 5 was formed in the near primary context, while the other two layers were transported by waterflow from nearby areas. The archaeological materials were predominantly buried around 90-80 ka BP, as determined by the latest work on layer 5 using the OSL method. This paper presents a study on core reduction strategies of stone artifacts from three cultural layers uncovered in 2015. The findings of this study will enhance our understanding of lithic technology and the associated human behaviors that occurred during the early Late Pleistocene in North China.

The excavation in 2015 yielded a total of 2655 lithics. Out of these, 61 were found in layer 4, 2563 in layer 5, and 31 in layer 6. The stone artifacts were made using different raw materials sourced from local ancient rock outcrops and gravel layers. Chert was the most common material found in the lithic assemblage, while others, such as quartzite, dolomite, were used less frequently. In layer 5, the lithic assemblage comprises 111 cores, 419 flakes, 786 chunks, 1076 debris, 162 retouched tools and 9 hammerstones. Cores were primarily knapped on rocks, chunks, pebbles and flakes using direct percussion with hard hammers. Four categories have been identified: test cores (n=23), casual cores (n=68), partial bifacial cores (n=5), and discoid cores (n=15). Most cores were chipped casually and did not show any special technological organization. They were mainly exploited through unidirectional flaking on the same knapping surface. Discoid cores, which were assigned to the bifacial centripetal recurrent method, are considered to be an independent and relatively stable technological system at Banjingzi site. There are no obvious traces indicating intentional preparation of the debitage surfaces of cores, although a few striking platforms were occasionally retouched. Techno-complexes found in layer 4 and layer 6 shared the same characteristics as layer 5, but only a few lithics, including 3 casual cores with unifacial flaking method, were unearthed. Overall, the core reduction strategies at Banjingzi exhibit the main attributes of core-flake industries commonly found in North China.

Key words: Nihewan Basin, Banjingzi site, early Late Pleistocene, Core-flake industry