Abstract: Laoya Cave (Laoya in Chinese means “crow”) is located on the Yun-Gui Plateau in Guizhou Province, southwestern China. This site presents a detailed picture of how ancient occupants survived and organized their subsistence activities during the early phases of the Late Paleolithic. The preserved deposits span a period of approximately 23,000 years in Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3. More than eight cultural components are identified at the site. AMS radiocarbon dates on animal bones and one charcoal sample indicate that the cave layer sequence represents a temporal interval between roughly 37,060 and 21,000 Cal yr BP, with another short deposition at 14065 Cal yr BP. The lower deposits supposedly represent early Late Paleolithic with anatomically modern Homo sapiens and the blade industrial period (e.g., Shuidonggou Locality 1, Ningxia; Shibazhan site, Heilongjiang; Jinsitai site, Inner Mongolia). The youngest component of the site is chronologically equivalent to the microblade industry in North China (e.g. Maanshan site, Nihewan Basin) but also contains remnant historic deposits, not discussed here. Laoya Cave was discovered in 1983 and first excavated by Chunhua Xu and Yanghui Cai in 1985. The total working area was 24 m2 at the mouth of the cave, and exposed about 1.7 m of heavily cemented Late Paleolithic deposits. A second excavation at Laoya Cave was conducted by the team of Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and Guizhou Provincial Museum in July and August 2013, and referred to a trench of 8 m2 next to the 1985 excavation area. Paleolithic cultural materials are abundant from the uppermost 1.5 m~10 cm. A small test trench was also dug in the 1985 excavation area, for pursuing deeper deposits below the anthropogenic layer. The Laoya Cave stratigraphic sequence is dominated by human activities. The primary geogenic component is clay or silty clay, typical of limestone and karstic terrains in the Yun Gui Plateau. The accumulation of clay is punctuated by wood ash lenses and dumps (or concentrations) of artifacts and animal bones. Stratigraphic distinctions are recognized largely with color or texture changes of the sediments. In the Laoya Cave, there is a chronological gap in the preserved sequence between 20,995~14,065 Cal yr BP. Pottery chips, animal bones, chipped and ground stone artifacts, and modern human bones on the surface of the current cave deposit indicate a historic and even modern anthropogenic occupation. Numerous cultural features such as small hearths (50~100cm in diameter) from earlier layers and large unlaminated ash dumps lacking charcoal or burned sediments are also identified.

Key words: Bijie; Guizhou; Paleolithic; Archaeology; Lithic artifacts