The knapping strategies in the Paleolithic on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau, southwest China: A regional particularity

Abstract

The Paleolithic industry in southern China has long been considered as “cobble-tool tradition” or “chopper-chopping tool”, or even “Mode 1” in the international community since the 1940s (Movius, 1948). However, these denominations are biased since local facts are much more diversified not only because of the discovery of the bifacial phenomenon in Bose (Guangxi, southern China), but also the presence of a debitage (core-flaking) tradition on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau of southwestern China. This study will present the general lithic traditions in the southwestern Chinese provinces of Guizhou and Yunnan, where existed a long-lasting debitage culture and small flake-tool industry in the lithic assemblages dating to the Early Pleistocene until the Early Holocene. These lithic traditions are still not well recognized among researchers, and this situation could hinder the discussion of other archaeological phenomena in this region, such as the emergence of the Hoabinhian in Yunnan Province. The debitage tradition in southwestern China may represent regional adaptations and technological stability of the populations in a subtropical mountainous and forest environment. In this context, the appearance of large shaped tools and other knapping strategies and bone industry in the final Late Pleistocene (after 50–40 ka BP) on the Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau seems to be a “sudden event” and may indicate local innovations or the arrival of new populations, and contribute to the cultural diversification in the region.