Abstract: The Danjiangkou Reservoir Region (DRR) has currently been revealed as another important handaxe-bearing region in China, along with the well-known regions of Dingcun, Luonan and Bose. More than 100 Paleolithic open-air sites were discovered under the systematic investigations of the last two decades. Among them, over 30 sites were excavated, which have provided materials for studying the Acheulean technocomplex in DRR. As an archaeological project to co-operate with the construction of the national South-to-North Water Transfer Project, these sites were mainly distributed in areas that would be submerged after building of the dam, namely, the third and second terraces of the Han River in DRR. However, the Yunxian hominid site on terrace four indicates that high terraces in DRR contain even older sites. For further exploration of the earliest appearance of the Acheulean in DRR and its pattern of origin, we conducted a systematic field investigation in DRR focusing on the higher elevation terraces. Twenty-four new Paleolithic open-air sites have been found, with 273 artifacts collected from them. Regarding typologies, there are 45 (16.5%) cores and 53 (19.4%) flakes. We further classify the cores into six sub-types, including four casual cores, 20 chopper cores, eight discoidal cores, nine polyhedral cores, one opposed platform core and two irregular cores. Flaking by-products include chunks (n=124, 45.4%), flake fragments (n=18, 6.6%) and split flakes (n=6, 2.2%). In addition, there are 27 (9.9%) formal tools which reflect retouching or shaping technology. Both light-duty and heavy-duty tools were found, for instance, six small-sized scrapers and four largesized choppers. Importantly, 10 handaxes, six picks and one knife, which possess Acheulean technological characteristics, were also identified from the assemblage. Overall, the analysis of artifacts shows that the raw material usage, along with the flaking and retouching technologies of the DRR hominids, are diverse in character. The new findings reported here strongly demonstrate the potential of the DRR for future research.

Key words: Danjiangkou Reservoir Region (DRR); Fourth terrace; Acheulean; Handaxe; Yunxian hominid site