The Initial Upper Palaeolithic in Northwest China: New evidence of cultural variability and change from Shuidonggou locality 7

Abstract

The process of the Middle to Upper Palaeolithic transition has been hotly debated for many years, but East Asia has not been a significant part of that debate until recently. The Shuidonggou (SDG) site complex, yielding Initial Upper Paleolithic (IUP) blade-rich assemblages, has been given more and more importance since its discovery and first excavation in the 1920s. This paper presents a specific study of the archaeological remains yielded by three years of systematic, modern excavations at Shuidonggou locality 7 (SDG7), an important locality within the SDG site cluster. Although the archaeological deposits of SDG7 had undergone some hydraulic disturbances, detailed lithic analyses identified two distinct technological systems. One is termed autochthonous and is a predominantly flake-tool technology, and the other is an allochthonous Levallois-like technology which coexisted within the same Lower Concentrated Layer for some time before disappearing, implying the potential existence of technological diffusion and interaction between the two different technologies. The technological variability and change suggested by the evidence from SDG7 reveal a kind of cultural mosaic, rather than the replacement of one lithic technology by another. We believe the new round of excavations and research in the SDG site will provide more evidence for answering key questions about the process of the Middle–Upper Paleolithic transition in North China.