A preliminary study on the animal fossils from Donggou site in Yuxian Basin, North China
Received date: 2025-12-12
Accepted date: 2026-01-29
Online published: 2026-06-12
The Donggou site, situated on south of the Nihewan basin, is an important open-air site in Yu County, Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province. Previous research has preliminarily established the cultural and chronological framework for the site. The lithic assemblage unearthed in 2017 belongs to simple “core-and-flake” technology; multiple indicators suggests that the Donggou archaeological remains have not been strongly transformed, and are a near-primary context deposition. The optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating results show that human occupation of the site occurred in the 76-74 ka, corresponding to the late stage of Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 5a.
In this paper, we present the results of a zooarchaeological and taphonomic analyses of the faunal remains from the Donggou site. Our preliminary study shows that the living environment of the hominins was generally characterized by cold and humid conditions.The faunal assemblage indicates that Cervidae and Bovidae were the main animal species and the dominant prey species for hominins. Natural modifications such as carnivore or rodent tooth marks, sedimentary abrasions, and root etching marks were minimal. The taphonomic evidence further supports that the Donggou site is a near-primary context site, where hominins were the primary agents responsible for the accumulation of the bone assemblage. Furthermore, some evidence suggests that the site may have functioned as a residential locality; the presence of cut marks and percussion notches indicates a variety of human activities, such as skinning, dismembering, and deflashing, while percussion traces on the bones suggest marrow extraction strategies. Skeletal element distribution reveals that the carcass transport strategies may be different based on prey body size. For large-sized animals, they often preliminarily processed carcasses in the field, discarding low-utility parts and selectively transporting high-yield portions back to the Donggou site. For medium-sized animals, they tended to transport the carcasses whole to the camp to maximize resource acquisition. In conclusion, the zooarchaeological and taphonomic analysis of the Donggou site provides new archaeological materials for the study of the exploitation of animal resources by hominins in mid- to high- latitude regions of East Asia, this may reflect hominin subsistence strategies in response to environmental changes during MIS 5.
Key words： Yuxian basin; Donggou site; zooarchaeology; taphonomy; MIS 5a
HE Xiangdong , LIANG Yue , WANG Chunxue , NIU Dongwei , DU Yuwei . A preliminary study on the animal fossils from Donggou site in Yuxian Basin, North China[J]. Acta Anthropologica Sinica, 2026 , 45(03) : 586 -599 . DOI: 10.16359/j.1000-3193/AAS.2026.0029
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