Middle Pleistocene bifaces from Fengshudao (Bose Basin, Guangxi, China)

Abstract

The Bose (also Baise) Basin in Guangxi, southern China is well known for the presence of Paleolithic bifacially worked implements. The Bose Basin handaxes came to the attention of the international scientific community primarily for two reasons: 1) the age at 803 ka (thousands of years), places it at the Early to Middle Pleistocene transition; and 2) the presence of bifaces tests the validity of the Movius Line and whether it was time to simply discard the model. However, questions were almost immediately raised because the age was based on the supposed association of Australasian tektites that may or may not have been redeposited, and at the time of the initial publications all of the Bose Basin handaxes were surface collected. Thus, whether the Bose bifaces can necessarily be associated with the tektites and whether the tektites themselves were redeposited are important considerations. Here, we report the findings from recent excavations from the Fengshudao site located in the Bose Basin. The primary findings are: 1) the in situ excavation of tektites, which do not appear to have been redeposited, in association with bifaces from one stratigraphic level from one site indicates that the age of these stone tools should be around 803 ka; 2) the Fengshudao hominins were utilizing locally-available quartz, quartzite, and sandstone river cobbles; and 3) in a number of aspects, the Fengshudao handaxe morphology differs from the typical western Acheulean, and are quite large and thick compared with even the bifaces from other regions of eastern Asia (e.g., Luonan Basin, China; Imjin/Hantan River Basins, Korea). Although Fengshudao may be a case of western Acheulean hominins dispersing into the Bose Basin from nearby South Asia, it is quite possible that the Fengshudao bifaces can be considered an example of convergent evolution.