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Research On Stone Ware Industry In The Yanglinnanshan Site

Posted on:2010-03-20Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:H TianFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360272998895Subject:Archaeology and Museology
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In May 2008, the Yanglinnanshan Site was found in the archeological investigations targeted at Paleolithic age along the Hailang River Watershed attached to the Mudan River by the joint archeological excavation team between the Heilongjiang Research Institute of Cultural Heritage and Archeology and the Frontier Archeology Research Center of Jinlin Univeristy. This site is located 30 km southwest to Hailin City, Heilongjiang Province, about 1 km to the Haiang River in the North, 500 m to the Yanglin Village, about 1 km to the Yanglinxishan site in the west, and 500 m to the Zhangming Village in the southeast. The site is at latitude 44°22′41.2″north and longitude 129°05′43.3″east. In total, 97 pieces of stonewares were found from the ground surface and the stratum, 13 of which were found from the stratum with the rest collected from the ground surface. Findings of these stone wares not only filled the gap of the Paleolithic archeology along the Xiaoxingan Mountains and the Zhangguangcai Mountains, but provided new information to the Paleolithic archeology in Heilongjiang Province and Northeast Asia.The author conducted a preliminary research into the findings by using typology, statistics, and fabrication techniques, and so on, with the conclusions as follows: Hornstone was used as raw materials for stone ware, making up 50.49% of the total, followed by slate, accounting for 21.36%, obsidian, tuff, and andesite, respectively accounting for 6.8%, 5.83%, and 3.88%, rhyoliteporphyry, quartzite, crystal, felsite, etc shared the rest.The stone wares included cores, flakes, broken stones, and tools. The number of cores accounted for 15.5%, with a length of 19 to 120 mm, a width of 43 to 137 mm, a depth of 27 to 118 mm, an average length of 61 mm, an average width of 87 mm, an average depth of 72 mm and an average weight of 422 g. The core types included single platform core with single working facet, double platform core with single working facet, triple platform core with double working facets, polyhedral platform core with double working facets, and core remnants. Flakes accounted for 20.6% of the total stone wares, with complete flakes and broken ones. The complete flakes had a length of 35 to 119 mm, a width of 17 to 181 mm, a depth of 5 to 28 mm, a weight of 1.1 to 318 g, with an average length of 64mm, an average width of 62 mm, an average depth of 15 mm, and an average weight of 92 g, mainly medium size. The broken flakes had two types: one held partial platform, the other contained no platform. The former one had an average length, width, depth and weight of 38 mm, 25 mm, 13 mm, and 25 g. The later one had an average length, width, depth, and weight of 44 mm, 43 mm, 14 mm, and 28 g. The blades accounted for 8.2% of total stone wares, including near-ended blades, mid-section blades and far-ended blades. The broken stones accounted for 39.2%, in irregular shapes, with an average length, width, depth, and weight of 57.43 mm, 42.71 mm, 19.76 mm and 115.27 g. The stone tools accounted for 17.6%, including stone hammers of the primary category, choppers, spear-shaped wares, and pointed-edge wares of the secondary and tertiary categories. All these stone wares reflected a completed fabrication techniques and a relatively completed industry feature.Stone wares were mainly in small and medium size, with an average length, width, and depth of 55 mm, 46 mm, and 52 mm. One stone ware was in micro size, 42 in small size, 30 in medium size, 22 in large size and 2 in huge size. Among the secondary and the tertiary categories, 6 large and medium size tools, and 2 small size tools were founded, which reflected that the large and medium size tools were the majority. Most stone wares and tools were light, with an average weight of 168 g, of which 19 was light, 58 relatively light, 17 relatively heavy .Percussion was a basic technique during decrotification in this site. It showed distinct preparation recondition toward cores to get blades, including flat flack cores and round flack cores. The former one carried the Levallois style, and the later used single direction flaking techniques. Not only large gravel tools, but spear-shaped tools trimmed by"soft"hammer, pointed-edge wares were also found in the large tools, of which, the 3 spear-shaped tools found in this site showed the technique development from"hard"hammer to"soft"hammer, which provided critical data to research stone ware fabrication techniques.The sites yielding either blade techniques, gravel tools, or"soft"hammer conditioning techniques were found in the neighboring areas of the Yangnanshan Site, but no sites like the Yanglinnanshan Site yielded all the three techniques, it may reflect some age linkages among sites. Therefore, findings of the Yanglinnanshan site and the archeological investigations in the Hailang River Watershed proved regional characteristics compared to the historical findings in the Northeast China and Northeast Asia. However, more data and followed-up research are required to find out the linkage between the stone ware context in the Yanglinnanshan site and the other Paleolithic industries. The Yanglinnanshan site shared slight similarities with the Oxinovka culture in Russia (located in the upper stream of Heilongjiang River), reflecting the combination of the blade techniques and the gravel tools. Comparing with the related sites in nearby areas, it was initially presumed that the age of the Yanglinnanshan site was between 50,000– 20,000 B.C.
Keywords/Search Tags:Yanglinnanshan Site, the Hailang River, research of stone artifacts
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