Abstract: Qingshuiyuan Dadong (QSYDD), discovered in September 1998, is located in Baijin town, Huishui county, Guizhou province. In the past several years, the discovery of numerous stone artifacts, bone tools, charcoal layers, as well as fossil fragments has attracted attention in Paleolithic research. From September to November, 2013, the site was excavated by the staff from a joint archaeological team of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of Archaeology and Cultural Relics of Guizhou Province. The excavation exposed 4 m2 and 6 m2 in two different areas named A and B. The sediments of Area A are sandy clays of gray, grayish yellow, and grayish black color, with a total thickness of more than 90 cm (without reaching bedrock). 14C dating on charcoal samples from the archaeological layers has yielded an age ca. 14 ka-11 ka BP, which places the QSYDD site in the Terminal Pleistocene, and in the Paleolithic to Neolithic Transition in Southwest China. A total of 2398 stone artifacts and more than 2000 animal fossils and fragments were unearthed from Area A. The lithic assemblage includes cores, retouched tools, debitage, stone hammer, and polished pebbles which show the small Flake Tool Tradition in China. It should be noted that 5 bipolar and bipolar elements were identified which indicate bipolar technique was used by early humans as a flaking method at the site. The principal flaking technique at the site is direct hammer percussion. Lithic raw materials exploited at the site were locally available from adjacent surrounding rocks. Chert is the predominant raw material type used for producing stone artifacts at the site. Most of the stone artifacts are small in size. Scrapers are the dominant retouched tool types, followed by notches. Retouched tools appear to be modified by direct hammer percussion, mostly unifacially retouched on the dorsal surface of blanks. In addition, the excavation and research on the QSYDD site will bear great significance for the study of adaptive behaviors adopted by early humans in the low latitude of Central Guizhou in the Terminal Pleistocene.

Key words: Neolithic/Paleolithic transition; Flake Tool Tradition; cave site; Qingshuiyuan Dadong (QSYDD); Guizhou