Environment of the Early Pleistocene Banshan Paleolithic Site in the Nihewan Basin, North China

Abstract

The Banshan archaeological site is one of the most important Early Pleistocene Paleolithic sites in the Nihewan Basin in North China. Based on analyses of pollen, grain size and charcoal of 56 samples from a sedimentary profile, we reconstructed the environment of the Banshan site before and after the interval of hominin activity (1.340–1.290 Ma). The results show that before the appearance of hominin activity (1.340–1.324 Ma), the climate of the region was initially cold and wet and then cold and dry. The regional vegetation was mainly Pinus and Picea forest in the earlier stage, and steppe dominated by arid-tolerant plants such as Artemisia and Chenopodiaceae in the later stage. During the period of hominin activity (1.324–1.318 Ma), the climate was warm and wet, the vegetation was mainly Pinus forest, and the site was a lakeside environment which would have provided resources such as food and water for hominins. During 1.318–1.310 Ma, the climate was warm and wet, the lake continued to expand and the lake level rose, which may have forced the hominins to migrate outside the area. During 1.310–1.290 Ma, the climate changed from warm and humid to cold and arid, accompanied by the change of the regional vegetation from forest to forest-grassland. Hominin activity at the Banshan site occurred during the interval of climate change from cold and dry to warm and wet, and it ended with the rise of the ancient lake level at Nihewan and the deterioration of the climate.

Early Pleistocene depositional and environmental conditions at Dachangliang, Nihewan Basin, NE China

“…Their findings show an overall increasing trend of interglacial EASM rainfall from 1.65-0.5 Ma which is apparently supported by our observed upward increases in the thickness of white marl layers in the NH-T section. The warm cycles 1, 4 and 6 at NH-T section probably correspond to three inferred warm periods reflected by high MS in the unit from 1.66-1.55 Ma of the XT section (Ao et al, 2010a), recorded by pollen data at the BS site (1.324-1.310 Ma; Yang et al, 2022) and as the upper lacustrine deposits (stage 3) of the XDK section , respectively. Magnetite and hematite were identified as the dominant ferrimagnetic minerals in the E Nihewan Basin by Ao et al (2009) and Liu et al (2018).…”

“…At MJG, a package of three distinctly coloured sediment layers, characterised as red, gray and yellow (RGY), was noticed. This RGY sediment package was used to laterally trace the four artefact-bearing beds from MJG and one artefact-bearing bed from BS to their correlative intervals at section T3 (Yang et al, 2022;Figure 12). As a result of this correlation, a sediment accumulation rate of ca.…”

“…mostly represent wetland deposits rather than prevailing lacustrine conditions (Zhu et al, 2004). Yang et al (2022) suggested a shallow lacustrine environment during hominin activity (1.324-1.317 Ma) at the Banshan site, which later experienced lake expansion and lake-level rise (1.318-1.310 Ma). This aligns with our interpretation of the facies association of cycle 4, including wetland, shallow and deep lake deposits.…”

Glacial–Interglacial Cycles and Early Human Evolution in China

“…The Early Pleistocene sites were characterized by a relatively complete chronological sequence and abundant small stone artifacts and are considered to be the birthplace of the traditional small tool industry in North China [196,197]. The main methods used for dating Early Pleistocene sites (before ~0.78 Ma) in the basin are paleomagnetism (PM) and electron spin resonance (ESR), which have resulted in a long-scale, largely continuous chronological sequence of sites from ~1.7-0.78 Ma, yet there is a significant chronological gap in the period of 1-0.8 Ma, e.g., [110][111][112][113][114][115][116][117][118][119][120][121][122]. The most widely accepted age of hominin activity in the basin is about 1.7-1.6 Ma [114].…”