scholarly journals A Macroscopic Perspective on Lithic Technology and Human Behavior during Pleistocene in Zhejiang Province, Southeastern China

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hong Chen ◽  
Jiying Liu ◽  
Xinmin Xu ◽  
Huiru Lian
Keyword(s):  
South China ◽  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Human Adaptation ◽  
Behavioral Strategies ◽  
Stone Artifacts ◽  
The North ◽  
Lithic Assemblages ◽  
North Part ◽  
Sharp Edges

Paleolithic archeological remains were not reported from Zhejiang until 2002. Up to now, over 70 Paleolithic sites and/or localities have been recovered through a series of surveys mainly in the north part of Zhejiang. An overview of the Paleolithic record and archeological sequence in this region during the Early to Late Pleistocene are present from a macroscopic perspective in this article, as well as the brief introduction of lithic technology and human adaptation in south China. In general, the lithic assemblages in Zhejiang represent the features of Pebble Industry in south China and show a trend of reduction on the size of stone artifacts since the Late Paleolithic. It is presumed that prehistoric humankind has shown the behavioral strategies as followed: a) exploited local raw material; b) the utilization of core and the degree of proficiency in knapping have been improved gradually; c) the retouching focused on the areas of edges; and d) preferred to use sharp edges of tools.

scholarly journals Stone Inventory of Neolithic Sites with Flat-Bottomed Ceramics of the Trans-Urals Forest Zone

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (7) ◽  
pp. 164-175
Author(s):  
Lyubov L. Kosinskaya
Keyword(s):  
Western Siberia ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Forest Steppe ◽  
Early Neolithic ◽  
Forest Zone ◽  
The North ◽  
Lithic Assemblages ◽  
Steppe Region ◽  
Stone Industry

Purpose. The earliest sites with different variants of flat-bottomed ceramics in the forest zone of Trans-Urals and Western Siberia date back to the 7th – the beginning of the 6th millennium BC. To understand the process of neolithization, it is important to ascertain the succession of their lithic industries with previous Mesolithic. Results. A review of the Early Neolithic stone inventory reveals two distinct areas in the forest zone. The northern one (Lower Ob, Surgut Ob and Konda basin) is characterized by three technologies: direct percussion flaking and block-on-block knapping of quartz, with inexpressive rarely retouched tools such as scrapers and scaled pieces; percussion-abrasive technique for polished knives, arrowheads, adzes and axes; punch technique for flint inset bladelets, without any arrowheads. Although investigated Mesolithic sites are not numerous in this area, it is clear that the first two technologies arose in the North since that time, when the microblade technique was the dominant one. Lithic assemblages of Early Neolithic settlements in the southern forest zone (Middle Trans-Urals) are generally analogous to the local Mesolithic. The latter included the microblade industry similar to the northern one but supplemented by polished axes. In the Early Neolithic it was completed by arrowheads (tanged points). The inventory of Early Neolithic sites in the Ob-Irtysh forest-steppe region with similar flat-bottomed ceramics almost exclusively contains the flint blade industry resembling the Mesolithic one of the area. Conclusion. Therefore, it is possible to trace traditions and innovations in stone-processing based on three groups of features. These are the types of available stone raw material and their own appropriate technologies, the preservation degree of microblade industry, the nomenclature and typology of implements. According to these traits, in each of the three districts, the Early Neolithic stone industry inherited traditions of the local Mesolithic, but developed in its own way.

scholarly journals New data concerning “large blades” in Catalonia: Apt-Forcalquier chert in the Penedès (south of Barcelona) during the Late Neolithic - Chalcolithic

2016 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Javier Mangado Llach ◽  
Jean Vaquer ◽  
Juan Francisco Gibaja Bao ◽  
F. Xavier Oms Arias ◽  
Artur Cebrià Escuer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bronze Age ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Archaeological Sites ◽  
Late Neolithic ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
The North ◽  
Lithic Assemblages ◽  
Use Wear ◽  
North Eastern

The study of large chert blades documented in funerary contexts from the Late Neolithic to the Early Bronze Age in the north-eastern part of Iberia has been addressed in recent works by the authors, in which 49 burial sites have been registered with more than 200 large chert blades. In this paper the recent data obtained from the study of seven archaeological sites located in the region of the Penedès (southwest of Barcelona) is presented.The macroscopic characterization of the knapped stone industries shows their great variety regarding the origin of the siliceous raw material, often coming from outside the analysed region. In some cases their macroscopic features link them to Apt-Forcalquier chert (Haut Provence, France), which was widely distributed in the form of large blades during these phases of Late Catalan prehistory.The absence of evidence of the chaîne opératoire production of this type of foreign chert in the lithic assemblages in Catalonia lead to the supposition that the dispersion of the blades was done as trade items, and only in a few cases were highly complex technological tools of this kind of raw material distributed (e.g., daggers). Use-wear analysis reveals that these blades were not merely luxury items in grave goods. Far from this idea, they have to be considered as functional, even multifunctional, items. All the same, it is thought that they must have had an important value because they moved from the domestic sphere to the graves. In fact, the pieces that usually remain are not small fragments, but whole or almost whole, large blades that normally remain effective. 

Gravels and Travels: A Comment on Andrefsky's “Cascade Phase Lithic Technology”

1997 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 67-81 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kenneth C. Reid
Keyword(s):  
Lithic Technology ◽  
Field Studies ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Snake River ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
High Quality ◽  
The Holocene ◽  
Lithic Assemblages

The presence of chert in mid-Holocene lithic assemblages along the Snake River has been attributed to long distance mobility, with the material introduced in bifacial form to the canyons from upland quarries. Geological field studies, however, show that chert, argillite, and quartzite are common in terrace and alluvial gravels along the lower Snake River. These lithologies probably provided a major source of high quality raw material for populations wintering near the river throughout the Holocene.

PROVENANCE EVOLUTION OF THE PALEO-HANJIAN RIVER IN THE NORTH SOUTH CHINA SEA

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 41-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiangtao ZHANG ◽  
Liang CHEN ◽  
Qinghua SHE ◽  
Sufang ZHANG ◽  
Peijun QIAO ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
South China Sea ◽  
South China ◽  
China Sea ◽  
The North ◽  
Provenance Evolution

Chinese Historiography in the Age of Maturity, 960–1368

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles Hartman
Keyword(s):  
South China ◽  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Examination System ◽  
Economic Expansion ◽  
New Class ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
The North ◽  
System A ◽  
Age Of Maturity

This chapter looks at how the Song dynasty (960–1279) reconsolidated central power and eliminated the provincial regimes that had developed in the wake of Tang decentralization. During the first thirty years after 960, they fostered astute policies that promoted and took advantage of continuing economic expansion. To administer their new polity, the Song emperors recruited through the examination system a new class of bureaucratic elite that Western writings on China often call the ‘literati’. The aristocrats of Tang had given way to the merchants and bureaucrats of Song. However, although the Song expanded Chinese economic and political power into South China, it never completed the conquest of all the traditional Chinese lands in the north. The Song coexisted with a series of alien or conquest dynasties to its north and west.

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