Excavation/Investigation Reports

2022 survey report of Paleolithic sites in the Binchuan Basin in Yunnan

  • XIAO Peiyuan ,
  • RUAN Qijun ,
  • GAO Yu ,
  • JIA Zhenxiu ,
  • ZHANG Ming ,
  • YANG Lijing ,
  • LIU Jianhui ,
  • LI Sanling ,
  • LI Hao
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  • 1. Key Laboratory of Vertebrate Evolution and Human Origins, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100044
    2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
    3. Yunnan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Kunming 650118
    4. State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Resources and Environment (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101
    5. Binchuan County Cultural Relics Management Office, Binchuan 671600
    6. School of History and Culture, Henan University, Kaifeng 475001

Received date: 2023-06-06

  Revised date: 2023-08-21

  Online published: 2024-06-04

Abstract

From September to October 2022, a Paleolithic survey was carried out in the Binchuan County, Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Province. In total, 33 Paleolithic sites have been discovered during the survey, along with 417 stone artifacts being collected. All sites are located at front edges of the third terraces of Sangyuan River and Liandong River. The types of stone artifacts include flakes, cores, tools and chunks, quartz syenite porphyry was the primary raw material exploited. Resharpening flakes have been identified as a special type in flakes. Scrapers with steep angles and multi-layered scars on the edge are unique, indicating similar retouching features with Quina technology in the European Middle Paleolithic stage. Although the original stratigraphic context for stone artifacts studied in this paper was missing, based on the geomorphological, stratigraphic and technological comparisons with the nearby dated sites of Tianhuadong Cave and Longtan in Heqing County, we suggest that the age of Paleolithic sites found in the Binchuan Basin can be placed into early and middle Late Pleistocene, and the cultural stage belongs to the Middle Paleolithic. The finding of Quina-type stone artifacts in the Binchuan Basin shed important lights for understanding the emergence, development and distributional patterns of such a technology in China. And furthermore, it is significant to refresh our knowledge of the diversity and complexity of lithic technologies in the Chinese Middle Paleolithic.

Cite this article

XIAO Peiyuan , RUAN Qijun , GAO Yu , JIA Zhenxiu , ZHANG Ming , YANG Lijing , LIU Jianhui , LI Sanling , LI Hao . 2022 survey report of Paleolithic sites in the Binchuan Basin in Yunnan[J]. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 2024 , 43(03) : 448 -457 . DOI: 10.16359/j.1000-3193/AAS.2023.0066

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