The microlithic in China

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In the 1930s as a result of discoveries of wedge-shaped (Gobi) cores at Shabarakh-usu in Mongolia, at Chikuochingtse in Xinjiang, and in the Campus site in Alaska, Nelson (1937) and Teilhard de Chardin (1939) put forward a hypothesis that culture contact might have existed between Asia and North America in ancient times. Since that time, many microlithic sites have been discovered in the vast area of East Asia and northwestern North America. Many archaeologists have engaged in a host of research projects, but the problems of where and how microlithic cultures originated are yet unsolved. In the 1940s and 195Os, microlithic assemblages were regarded as characteristic of one sort of Neolithic culture. The general idea in China and abroad was that microlithic technology had originated in the Lake Baikal area in Siberia. Some Chinese scholars regarded it as representative of cultures with a nomadic economy in grassland and desert areas, for it extended southward to the Great Wall area and stopped there, blocked by the influence of the Painted-Pottery Culture in the Yellow River Valley, and then expanded westward to Xinjiang (Pei 1954). Japanese scholars held differing opinions as to the origin of microlithic industries. Some regarded them as indigenous while others took them to be intrusive from the mainland. All these early hypotheses about microlithic industries were constrained by the limited archaeological evidence. With the excavation in recent decades of some important Upper Paleolithic sites in China, especially in North China, this problem is being illuminated by new finds. A microlith is a unique kind of stone artifact. Microcores have various shapes, such as wedge-shaped, conical, and cylindrical, and these shapes may reflect various different kinds of technology. The microlithic technique is one of the most advanced attainments in lithic technology. Microblades were generally mounted in bone or wood to form knives, saws, daggers, arrowheads, and so on. All uses of microblades, however, have not been determined fully, as many microblades were too small and