Taphonomic and paleoenvironmental issues of the Pleistocene loessic Paleolithic sites in the Qinling Mountains, central China

New progress in the geochronology of hominin relics in loess strata of the Chinese Loess Plateau

“…图 1 黄土高原及邻近地区黄土-河湖相地层中古人类活动遗迹分布地点示意图. 发现古人类遗迹的主要县(市)和重要地点: 黄土高原地区-1, 临夏 [21] ; 2, 同心 [25] ; 3, 环县 [20] ; 4, 华池 ; in the adjacent areas of the Chinese Loess Plateau -30, Lingwu (Shuidonggou) [37] ; 31, Wushenqi (Xarusgol) [38] ; 32, Shuozhou (Zhiyu) [33] ; 33, Xujiayao (Houjiayao) [39] ; 34, Nihewan (Donggutuo, Xiaochangliang, Majuangou) [39] ; 35, Luonan [41,42] ; 36, Lushi [34,35,40] ; 37, Shangluo [41,42] ; 38, Danfeng [41,42] ; 39, Hanzhong [41,42] ; 40, Ankang [41,42] ; 41, Yunxian [43] 0.2 Ma [31] , 属于早更新世晚期阶段的午城黄土上部层 [39] . 在黄土高原以南的旧石器发现地点有秦岭山脉的 山间盆地及河谷阶地中的陕西洛南、商洛、丹凤, 河 南卢氏; 在秦岭山脉与大巴山-武当山之间河谷中的有 陕西汉中、安康, 湖北郧县等…”

“…贾村位于 公王岭北面约9 km处的涝池河地带, 经与原始发掘剖 面 [49] 对比以及新的实地调查和古地磁定年证明, 该剖 建立了秦岭地区旧石器演化序列与山地黄土-河流阶 地演化序列的关系 [41,42] . 从目前所发表的资料来看, 最 早的有确切年代数据的旧石器赋存的地貌是第五级阶 地, 沉积物相当于黄土的S8~L15层位, 年代约为 0.8~1.2 Ma [41,42] . 然而, 这些地区还发育了第六级阶地…”

Earth surface processes and their effects on human behavior in monsoonal China during the Pleistocene-Holocene epochs

“…These findings indicate that early humans occupied the river terraces of the South Luohe River, Hanjiang River and Bahe River for a very long interval of time (Figure 4). They arrived in the QMR region, in both the north and south, and may have occupied the area semi-continuously until the last few tens of ka, probably with several phases of intensive activity (An and Ho, 1989;Lu et al, 2007Lu et al, , 2011aWang S J et al, 2005Wang S J et al, , 2008Wang S J et al, , 2014Wang S J et al, , 2016Zhuo et al, 2016;Sun et al, , 2013Sun et al, , 2017. The sites of early human settlement are located on river terraces within the range of several meters to hundred meters above the river water level, revealing that the humans moved across a large area.…”

“…After the earliest arrival in the QMR, the early humans dispersed over a large area, with a diameter of more than 200 km. The ages of the sites are clustered within specific ranges: 800-600 ka BP, 500-400 ka BP, 400-200 ka BP, 200-100 ka BP, and the last ~50 ka (Lu et al, 2007(Lu et al, , 2011a(Lu et al, , b, 2012Wang et al, 2005Zhuo et al, 2016;Wang and Lu, 2016). These results clearly indicate that the Qinling Mountains, with an average altitude of ~2000 m, did not act as a barrier to the migration of humans during the early to middle Pleistocene.…”

“…Moreover, the controversial finds of Wushan Man (Huang et al, 1995), Yuanmu Man (Gao, 2015) and the Bose Handaxe assemblage (Wang et al, 2014), are not discussed in this paper. In addition to these findings, hundreds of thousands Paleolithic artifacts have been collected in monsoonal China (Wang S, 2005;Gao et al, 2016;Wang and Lu, 2016). Over the past 30 years, our research group has collected more than 200,000 lithic artifacts in the Eastern and Central Qinling Mountains Region (QMR) (Wang S, 2005;Wang et al, 2008Wang et al, , 20142015Lu et al, 2007Lu et al, , 2011aLu et al, , 2012Sun et al, , 2017Zhuo et al, 2016;Zhuo, 2017, unpublished PhD thesis), and several phases of human occupation were documented (Lu et al, 2007(Lu et al, , 2011b(Lu et al, , 2012Sun et al, 2017).…”