A Comprehensive Study Of The Paleolithic Sites Discovered In Taihang Mountains

Taihang mountain always is the geographical boundaries of Shanxi,Hebei and Henan provinces.It rises from the West mountain in northwest of Beijing,winds to the south,and enlongs to the north of the Yellow river.Its bed rock is constituted of limestone,geniss and some other rocks.At both sides of the mountain there are a number of limestone caves being attributed to the natural forces,most of which are suitable for ancient human's habitation.Up to now,lots of paleolithc cave sites and locations have been founded at both sides of the mountain,such as Heiyanshui no.1 cave,Huyaodong cave,Maoyadong cave,Tashuihe site,Houhe cave site and Majidong cave site and so on,few of which have been excavated and studied.Therefore,most of which need to be researched in the multiple aspects.This thesis presents the comprehensive research about sites disvovered at both sides of Taihang mountains,which includes the following:distributions and stages of Paleolithic sites and locations of these sites;comparative study of the features of Paleolithic artifacts among different sites in both sides of this mountain;the study about human behavior in Jincheng basin during upper Paleolithic time and human adaption to the paleoenvironment;study about the period and area when and where microlith originated in China.In this thesis,it is thought that there are three distribution areas about Taihang mountains paleolithic culture,and which is devided into three different stages: the first stage,lower Paleolithic,Xinqiao site is included in this stage,the features of stone artifacts are represented by flake stone toolsand pepple stone tools;the second stage,the earlier upper Paleolithic,35,000~26,000 B.P.;the third stage,the end of the upper Paleolithic,26,000~10,000 B.P.,it is characterized by flake stone tools and microlithic stone tools.Raw materials appeared in the sites discovered from the middle and southern areas of Taihang mountain are quite different.In the middle area,quarts is treated as the most important material while in the south,it is flint that dominated among all the raw materials,which may be attributed to the different raw material sources.Nearly all of these sites are upper Paleolithic sites or loctions.At present,according to archaeological data,it is suggested that the period when human being diffused into coteau is somehow late in Taihang mountain.The old stone culture in the south of western Taihang moutain is promoted from the traditional flake stone tools in north of China,and it is still charaterised by some special features like stone assemblage and the way of trimming.The upper Paleolithic Culture of Taihang mountain is developed from early culture in the north of China.As to microlith,it is concluded that there are probably several different centres of the origin of microlith in North China,including southeast of shanxi province,lower reaches of Fenriver and the south of Lvliang plateau.The age when the origin of microlith is may be 28,000~26,000 B.P..