Ecological perspective on the points from the Gezishan site in Ningxia

  • Huimin WANG ,
  • Jialong GUO ,
  • Yanling ZHANG ,
  • Jincheng HUANG ,
  • Fei PENG ,
  • Xing GAO
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  • 1. Ningxia Institute of Archaeology and Cultural relics, Yinchuan 750001
    2. Qingtongxia Institute of Cultural relics, Qingtongxia 751600
    3. Department of Archaeology and Museology, School of Ethnology and Sociology, Minzu University, Beijing 100081
    4. Laboratory for Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins of CAS at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044
    5. CAS Center for Excellence in Life and Paleoenvironment, Beijing 100044
    6. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049

Received date: 2019-08-19

  Revised date: 2019-10-28

  Online published: 2020-09-10

Abstract

The Gezishan (Pigeon Mountain) site is located 50 km southeast of the Tengger desert and south of the Helanshan piedmont alluvial fan. Between the 1990s and the 2010s, thousands of lithic artifacts were collected from the surface at the site. Among the different kinds of lithic artifacts collected, points form a distinct typological class. This paper introduces some of the point types collected from the Gezishan site, and discusses their morphological and function variation in relation to paleoenviromental changes from the Late Pleistocene to Early Holocene. We suggest that the morphological variation of the Gezishan points reflects a shift in tool function from throwing projectile weaponry to digging tools. This technological transition corresponds with the changing local vegetation and plant resources during this time, and represents a novel behaviour that contributed to the onset of agriculture.

Cite this article

Huimin WANG , Jialong GUO , Yanling ZHANG , Jincheng HUANG , Fei PENG , Xing GAO . Ecological perspective on the points from the Gezishan site in Ningxia[J]. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 2019 , 38(04) : 575 -583 . DOI: 10.16359/j.cnki.cn11-1963/q.2019.0067

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