Abstract: Facing with thousands of archaeological materials, typology is an effective tool describing and simplifying them. Issues of typology have been hotly debated including its theoretical rational, principles of classification, and archaeological interpretation abilities. However, the typology commonly used in European Paleolithic communities has yet been systematically introduced in China which hampers the communications between researchers from China and other regions. For this reason, here we mainly introduce D. de Sonneville-Bordes?J. Perrot’s Upper Paleolithic typology which has been often applied in Paleolithic research in Europe, West Asia, and North Africa. Some discussions on the related issues of typology are offered as well. Knowing the almost universal presence of regional variations among lithic assemblages it is explicit that we cannot simply copy this typology or expect each retouched tool type to present in Upper Paleolithic assemblages in China. What we can do is that we build regional typology in China referring to the European Upper Paleolithic typology. By doing so we can communicate our lithic materials with scholars from other regions on one hand, and on the other hand more regional variations would also be uncovered with more appropriate regional typologies in Upper Paleolithic China.

Key words: Upper Paleolithic; Typology; Regional Perspective; Europe; China