Periodization And Regionalization Research Of The Middle To Lower Reaches Of The Yangtze River

China has an abundant Paleolithic Culture remains.Current study shows that th-ere is one major industry in the South and the North correspondingly with several regional industrial types existed at the same time.However,the study of Southern Pebble Lithic Industry relatively lacks of systematically sorting and summary.In particular,after 21 century,a large amount of Paleolithic site remains have been discovered in the Middle to Lower Yangzte River region,which indicates the independence and particularity of the Pebble Lithic Industry as an unneglectable part of Chinese Paleolithic Culture.By sorting the Paleolithic site remains discovered in the Middle to Lower Yangzte River region and using the method of comparison and summarizing,this essay tries to figure out the periodization and regionalization of this region.To begin with,this essay uses the result from Quaternary strata research to summarize the main features of the lithic industry in three different stages from early,middle to upper Paleolithic.This essay proposes that the development of the lithic industry in the Middle to Lower Yangzte River region has the characteristic of diachronnism,which means from Early to Upper Paleolithic,the lithic industry in this region evolve from typical pebble lithic industry to untypical lithic industry and finally the flake lithic industry.The direct evidences are the minimization of stone artifacts,change of lithic assemblages,diversification of flaking or retouching techniques etc.Then,by comparing the lithic assemblage and retouching techniques,this essay preliminary divided the lithic cultures in the Middle to Lower Yangzte River region into four zones:Pebblehandaxe zone in Northwestern Hubei province,Pebblepoints zone along the Yangzte River region in Hubei province and Lishui reaches in Hunan province.Pebble-chopper zone in Wu rive region,Pebble-scraper zone along the Lower Yangzte River region.After that,this article discusses the relationship between environment and the Paleolithic cultural development of Middle and Lower Yangzte River region.This essay argues that the change of climate will transform the ecological environment directly and thereby influence the subsistence resources of ancient humans.As to better acquire the necessary subsistence resources,the ancient humans were forced to reform their toolkits.Therefore,the development of lithic industry in Paleolithic period is closely related to the environment.In the end,based on the time and space characteristic of the cultures in the Middle and Lower Yangzte River region being summarized,this essay proposed that the pebble industry in this region has a rich connotation and the summary of early researchers cannot accord with the information reveal by new materials.Therefore,this essay complement the connotation of pebble lithic industry based on current research results.