Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-vvkck Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T09:16:17.951Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Middle Palaeolithic in China a review of current interpretations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 January 2015

Yee Mei Kei
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The author makes the case for cultural change during the period traditionally assigned to the Middle Palaeolithic in China (140–30 kya), challenging an earlier proposal (Antiquity 2002) that the period saw little change and the term should be abandoned.

Keywords

ChinaUpper PleistoceneMiddle Palaeolithic
Type
Research article
Information
Antiquity , Volume 86 , Issue 333 , September 2012 , pp. 619 - 626
Copyright
Copyright © Antiquity Publications Ltd. 2012 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brantingham, P.J. & Olsen, J.W.. 2000. Raw material quality and prepared core technologies in northeast Asia. Journal of Archaeological Science 27: 255–71.Google Scholar
Chen, C. 2003. Retrospect of fifty years of Palaeolithic archaeology in China, in Chen, C. & Keates, S.G. (ed.) Current research in Chinese Pleistocene archaeology: 21–36. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Clark, G.A. 2002. Neandertal archaeology—implications for our origins. American Anthropologist 104(1): 50–67.Google Scholar
Debenath, A. & Dibble, H.L.. 1994. Handbook of Paleolithic typology, Volume 1: Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Europe. Philadelphia (PA): University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Dibble, H.L. & Rolland, N.. 1992. On assemblage variability in the Middle Palaeolithic of western Europe: history, perspectives and a new synthesis, in Dibble, H.L. & Mellars, P. (ed.) The Middle Palaeolithic: adaptation, behavior and variability: 1–28. Philadelphia (PA): University Museum, University of Pennsylvania.Google Scholar
Du, S.S. 2003. Changes in the relationship between human behaviour and the environment in the Nihewan basin following the Middle to Late Palaeolithic period. Archaeology and Relics 2: 22–26 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Du, S.S. 2006. Cultural features of the Middle Palaeolithic of northern China and related questions, in Zhong, K., Gao, X. & Ningxia Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology (ed.) Papers on the Palaeolithic period—commemorating the 80th anniversary of the discovery of the Shuidonggou site: 17–23. Beijing: Wenwu (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Eren, M.I., Lycett, S.T., Roos, C.I. & Sampson, C.G.. 2011. Toolstone constraints on knapping skill: Levallois reduction with two different raw materials. Journal of Archaeological Science 38(10): 2731–39.Google Scholar
Foley, R. & Lahr, M.M.. 2003. On stony ground: lithic technology, human evolution, and the emergence of culture. Evolutionary Anthropology 12: 109–122.Google Scholar
Gao, X. 1999. A discussion on the Chinese Middle Palaeolithic. Acta Anthropologica Sinica 18(1): 1–15 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Gao, X. & Norton, C.J.. 2002. A critique of the Chinese Middle Palaeolithic. Antiquity 76: 397–412.Google Scholar
Keates, S.G. 1997. Analyzing modern human origins in China, in Clark, G.A. & Willermet, C.M. (ed.) Conceptual issues in modern human origins research: 294–303. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Keates, S.G. 2001. Perspectives on ‘Middle Palaeolithic’ settlement patterns in China, in Conard, N.J. (ed.) Settlement dynamics of the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age: 153–75. Tübingen: Kerns.Google Scholar
Keates, S.G. 2004. Home range size in Middle Pleistocene China and human dispersal patterns in eastern and central Asia. Asian Perspectives 43(2): 228–47.Google Scholar
Klein, R.G. 1992. The archaeology of modern human origins. Evolutionary Anthropology 1(1): 5–14.Google Scholar
Kleindienst, M.R. 2006. On naming things—behavioral changes in the late Middle to earlier Late Pleistocene, viewed from the eastern Sahara, in Hovers, E. & Kuhn, S.L. (ed.) Transitions before the transition: evolution and stability in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age: 13–28. New York: Springer.Google Scholar
Kuhn, S.L. 1992. On planning and curated technologies in the Middle Palaeolithic. Journal of Anthropological Research 48(3): 185–214.Google Scholar
Kuhn, S.L. 1995. Mousterian lithic technology. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Li, Y.H., Hou, Y.M. & BoËDa, E.. 2009. Mode of débitage and technical cognition of hominids at the Guanyindong site. Chinese Science Bulletin 54: 3864–71.Google Scholar
Marks, A.E., Hietal, A.H. & Williams, J.K.. 2001. Tool standardization in the Middle and Upper Palaeolithic: a closer look. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 11: 17–44.Google Scholar
Mellars, P. 1996. The Neanderthal legacy. Princeton (NJ): Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Moncel, M.H. 2004. Raw material collecting in the European Middle Palaeolithic. Stones from distant areas and local raw material: were there large and small territories? Was there an exchange of stones between Neanderthal groups? in Smyntyna, O.V. (ed.) The use of living space in prehistory: 13–25. Oxford: Archaeopress.Google Scholar
Monnier, G. 2006a. Testing retouched flake tool standardization during the Middle Paleolithic: patterns and implications, in Hovers, E. & Kuhn, S.L. (ed.) Transitions before the transition: evolution and stability in the Middle Paleolithic and Middle Stone Age: 57–84. New York: Kluwer Press.Google Scholar
Monnier, G. 2006b. The Lower/Middle Paleolithic periodization in western Europe. Current Anthropology 47(5): 709–44.Google Scholar
Monnier, G.F. & Mcnulty, K.P.. 2010. Questioning the link between stone tool standardization and behavioral modernity, in Lycett, S.J. & Chauhan, P.R. (ed.) New perspectives on old stones: analytical approaches to Palaeolithic technologies: 61–81. New York & London: Springer.Google Scholar
Otte, M. 2010. Before Levallois. Quaternary International 223-24: 273–80.Google Scholar
Qiu, Z.L. 1992. The stone industries of Homo sapiens from China, in Azakawa, T., Aoki, K. & Kimura, T. (ed.) The evolution and dispersal of modern humans in Asia: 363–72. Tokyo: Hokusen-sha.Google Scholar
Qiu, Z.L. 2009. The Middle Palaeolithic of China, in Wu, R.K. & Olsen, J.W. (ed.) Paleoanthropology and Paleolithic archaeology in the People's Republic of China: 187–210. Walnut Creek (CA): Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Rolland, N. & Dibble, H.L.. 1990. A new synthesis of Middle Palaeolithic variability. American Antiquity 55(3): 480–99.Google Scholar
Shi, J.M. 1992. Investigation of the Banjinzi lithic industry. Shanxi University Journal - Philosophy and Social Sciences 4: 15–18 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Soffer, O. 1994. Ancestral lifeways in Eurasia, in Nitechki, M.H. & Nitechki, D.V. (ed.) Origins of anatomically modern humans: 101–119. New York: Plenum.Google Scholar
Wang, Y.P. 2005. Roots of Pleistocene hominids and cultures in China. Beijing: Science Press (in Chinese).Google Scholar
White, M.J. & Pettitt, P.N.. 2011. The British Late Middle Palaeolithic: an interpretative synthesis of Neanderthal occupation at the north-western edge of the Pleistocene world. Journal of World Prehistory 24: 25–97.Google Scholar
White, R. 1982. Rethinking the Middle/Upper Paleolithic transition. Current Anthropology 23(2): 169–92.Google Scholar
Wu, X.Z. 1997. On the descent of modern humans in East Asia, in Clark, G.A. & Willermet, C.M. (ed.) Conceptual issues in modern human origins research: 294–303. New York: Aldine De Gruyter.Google Scholar
Xie, F. 1999. Some notes on the study of the Palaeolithic Nihewan basin, in Zhang, Z.P. & Xu, Z.Y. (ed.) Rethinking Chinese archaeology across the centuries 1. Hong Kong: Commercial Press (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhang, S.S. 1985. Preliminary investigation of the Middle Palaeolithic in north China. Prehistoric Research 1: 8–22 (in Chinese).Google Scholar
Zhang, S.S. 1990. Regional industrial gradual advance and cultural exchange in Palaeolithic China. Acta Anthropologica Sinica 9(4): 322–33 (in Chinese).Google Scholar