| Houjiayao site lying in the northwestern part of Nihewan basin in Yangyuan, Hebei province is one of the most important cultural sites of ancient human beings in Paleolithic age. It plays an important role in the research of Paleolithic culture and ancient human evolution. However, since the site was found, there has been a controversy on the age of existence of ancient human beings the site represents and the geological environment in the site, and people still haven’t come to an agreement even till now. Based on previous studies and supported by the project(13277611 D) " The human origins of oriental human – the research about the origins, environmental and geological background of Nihewan " of Hebei province, this paper does a systematical research on the site’s geologic-landform environment, especially the ancient river, which is close to the living environment of human beings, by carrying out geological observations and geomagnetic measurements and resistivity sounding 7 times. The results are as follows:1. In the late Middle Pleistocene, there exits an ancient river near Houjiayao site, which stretched in the direction of NNW—SSE and the river’s width is more than 1500 m. The ancient river’s plane form is very complicated, and it not only has many divarications or river branches, but also has an oxbow lake; the ancient river’s cross-section shows that both sides are steep, and the bottom is wide with a slow concave. The lateral variations of the thickness of paleochannel deposition show that the drainage line located between the east of Changxinggou and Dapodigou. From the point of the ancient river sedimentary structure type, there exits not only flood plain deposit, which gets clear dual structure and river sediment with mud and sand lens, but also pyrite-bearing peat layer deposition.2. The ancient river formed in 224 ka years ago when the ancient lake was large-scale shrinking, and the oxbow lake, located at the site, disappeared 174 ka years ago. And the main channel was buried by fluvial deposits from the Late Pleistocene and it finished its form history.3. The ancient cultural relics of Houjiayao site was buried at the oxbow lake sediments and the clay layer, which was on the top of oxbow lake sediments. Based on the sedimentary succession of the strata in the study area, the living age of the ancient people was between the age of oxbow lake sedimentary formation and peat layer’s formation(about 224 ~ 161 ka), namely, Houjiayao ancient human lived here for 60 ka years.4. Because of the shrinkage of Nihewan Lake, Houjiayao became a land far from the lake. The river is significant to humans at this time, as the river provided them plentiful food sources and water.5. The climate was cold when ancient Houjiayao people lived here in glacial. Although the site was far from lake, but the landform looks like a chair with wide handrail, made the Houjiayao site receiving more sunshine and less cold wind, On the side of a river and plentiful plants and animals on the land, the ancient Houjiayao people could get foods easily using stone tools which found in river bed. From the point of view of the ancients to get food, oxbow lake area was a perfect place, where animals can get in easily but hard to get out, so the hunting success rate is higher.6. Back at the Paleolithic period, the productivity is pretty low and ancient human beings mainly live by hunting and collection. They have to find relatively superior lands which are far away from the residual lake, namely:① there should be rich food and water resources for survival; ② it should have stone materials of high quality which can be easily found and used to make hunting tools; ③there should be a place with wide topography to facilitate group hunting; ④ there should be a relatively mild local environment against the cold climate background, and etc. Houjiayao site occupies all the above superior living conditions, and that is why it is an inevitable trend for ancient people to choose there to live. |
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