Luminescence ages for three ‘Middle Palaeolithic’ sites in the Nihewan Basin, northern China, and their archaeological and palaeoenvironmental implications

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• 作者：Yu-Jie Guo^a ; ^{yjguo87@gmail.com" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; ^{yg991@uowmail.edu.au" class="auth_mail" title="E-mail the corresponding author} ; Bo Li^a ; Jia-Fu Zhang^b ; Bao-Yin Yuan^c ; Fei Xie^d ; Richard Graham Roberts^a
• 关键词：Optical dating ; K-feldspar ; MET-pIRIR ; Standardised growth curves ; Middle Palaeolithic ; Nihewan palaeo-lake ; Sanggan River
• 刊名：Quaternary Research
• 出版年：2016
• 出版时间：May 2016
• 年：2016
• 卷：85
• 期：3
• 页码：456-470
• 全文大小：3954 K

文摘

The Nihewan Basin is a key region for studying the Palaeolithic archaeology of East Asia. However, because of the lack of suitable dating methods and representative lithic technologies in this region, the ‘Middle Palaeolithic’ sites in this basin have been designated based mainly on stratigraphic correlation, which may be unreliable. In this study, three Palaeolithic sites, Motianling, Queergou and Banjingzi, which have been assigned previously to the ‘Middle Palaeolithic’, are dated based on luminescence dating of K-feldspar grains. Our results show that the cultural layers at Motianling, Queergou and Banjingzi have ages of 315 ± 13, 268 ± 13 and 86 ± 4 ka (corresponding to Marine Isotope Stages 9, 8 and 5), respectively, suggesting that Motianling and Queergou should be assigned to the Lower Palaeolithic, while the age of Banjingzi is consistent with a Middle Palaeolithic attribution. Our results suggest that reassessing the age of ‘Middle Palaeolithic’ sites in the Nihewan Basin, and elsewhere in North China, is crucial for understanding the presence or absence of the Middle Palaeolithic phase in China. Our dating results also indicate that the Sanggan River developed sometime between about 270 and 86 ka ago.