Re-thinking the evolution of microblade technology in East Asia: Techno-functional understanding of the lithic assemblage from Shizitan 29 (Shanxi, China).

Yanhua Song,David J Cohen,Stefano Grimaldi,Jinming Shi,Fabio Santaniello,Ofer Bar-Yosef,Michael D Petraglia

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0212643

Yanhua Song, David J Cohen + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0212643

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Abstract

The lithic assemblage from Shizitan 29, a late Upper Paleolithic open-air site in Shanxi, China, provides evidence for the earliest, well-dated microblade production in East Asia, ca. 26/24 Ka cal BP. To pursue a behavioral rather than traditional typological understanding of this key adaptive technology, we apply a techno-functional approach that enables us to reconstruct the entire operational sequence in behavioral terms through the derivation of technical objectives. This methodology can serve as a model to be applied to other assemblages for greater understanding of the origins and spread of the broadly distributed eastern Asian Late Pleistocene microblade industries. Within the eight cultural layers at Shizitan 29, microblade production abruptly appears at the top of Layer 7 following earlier core-and-flake production, supporting hypotheses of microblade technology arising within adaptive strategies to worsening Late Glacial Maximum environments. Significantly, reconstruction of the operational sequence supports microblade technology being introduced into the North China Loess Plateau from regions further north. It also allows us to re-think microblades’ relationship in behavioral terms with earlier limited examples of East Asian blade production and the evolution and spread of microblade technology, providing new insights into the adaptive relationships between subsequent microblade productions.

Highlights

While the Upper Paleolithic was originally defined, based on the European and southwestern Asian archaeological record, by the production of blades, blade production in early Upper Paleolithic eastern Asia is limited
The study of the Shizitan 29 lithic assemblage follows an established methodology applied to Paleolithic assemblages in Western Europe [27,28,29,30,31] that stresses behavioral considerations based in “technical objectives” with this being the first application of this methodology to North China lithic production
The site does not show evidence for the local emergence and development of the new operational sequence required for the production of these blanks: instead, our approach leads us to inter that the operational sequence first appears in an already developed form

Summary

Introduction

While the Upper Paleolithic was originally defined, based on the European and southwestern Asian archaeological record, by the production of blades, blade production in early Upper Paleolithic eastern Asia is limited. Techno-functional understanding of microblade technology from Shizitan 29 (Shanxi, China).

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