Abstract
The Early Pleistocene archaeological evidence from the fluvio-lacustrine sequence of the Nihewan Basin (North China) offers an excellent opportunity to explore early human evolution and behavior in a temperate setting in East Asia, following the earliest ‘Out of Africa’. Here we present the first comprehensive study of the Feiliang (FL) site, with emphasis on the archaeological sequence, site integrity, and stone artifact assemblages. Magnetostratigraphic dating results show that early humans occupied the site ca. 1.2 Ma. Archaeological deposits were buried rapidly in primary context within shallow lake margin deposits, with only minor post-depositional disturbance from relatively low energy hydraulic forces. The FL lithic assemblage is characterized by a core and flake, Oldowan-like or Mode 1 technology, with a low degree of standardization, expedient knapping techniques, and casually retouched flakes. The bone assemblage suggests that hominin occupation of the FL site was in an open habitat of temperate grassland with areas of steppe and water. The main features of the FL assemblage are discussed in the context of the early Pleistocene archaeology of Nihewan, for which an assessment of current and future research is also presented.
Highlights
The abrasion index suggests that most assemblages in Trench 1 (T1), Trench 3 (T3), TOK and Trench 2 (T2), were buried in primary context with minimal fluvial disturbance
The success of human migrations from Africa into the Nihewan Basin during the early Pleistocene was rooted on a suite of morphological and behavioral adaptations to new environments [13, 31, 107, 108]
Despite progress in the study of the Nihewan Early Pleistocene, several important issues still need to be addressed with regards to the nature of the archaeological sequence, typo-technological features, and adaptive behaviors of early hominin settlement of the basin
Summary
Our aim is to present a detailed account of the Oldowan-like technology in the Early Pleistocene sequence of FL, and discuss the significance of well-preserved, low-density archaeological assemblages for the reconstruction of early Pleistocene hominin behavior in East Asia. We aim to discuss FL in the context of the early Pleistocene archaeology of the Nihewan basin
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