A Preliminary Report on the Excavation of the Pengjiahe Paleolithic Site in the Danjiangkou Reservoir Region

The Pengjiahe Paleolithic site,buried in the third terrace of the right bank of the Hanshui River,is located in the Pengjiahe village,Tutai town,Danjiangkou City,Hubei province.The site was excavated from November 15,2006 to January 5,2007 by staff of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology(Chinese Academy of Sciences),as a salvage archeological project due to the construction of the Dangjiangkou reservoir dam to a higher latitude.The excavation exposed an area of about 600 m~2.Five stratigraphic layers of the third terrace were identified at the site,with the total thickness of more than 20 meters.Archaeological materials were mainly unearthed from the 2nd to 4th layer,three layers of brown-red clay and brown-yellow silty clay interbedded with carbonate concretion,10-16m in thickness,about 20-25m above the Dangjiangkou reservoir water-level in December 2006.A total of 184 stone artifacts and 80 manuble pebbles were unearthed.The stone assemblage includes cores(37),flakes(67),chunks(55) and retouched tools(25). The general features of these artifacts are summarized as follows:1) Lithic raw materials exploited at the site were locally available from ancient riverbeds.More than seven kinds of raw materials were utilized in core reduction and tool manufacture including: vein quartz,igneous rock,siliceous limestone,silicarenite,siltstone,quartzite and schist.Quartzite,silicarenite and igneous rock are the dominant raw materials used for producing stone artifacts at the site.2) The principal flaking technique is direct hammer percussion without core preparation.The characters of cores and flakes indicate that the utilization rate of raw materials is low.3) Most stone artifacts(76.14%) are large and medium in size,with 18.19% is small in size.4) Most blanks for tool fabrication are pebbles and cores.Picks and choppers are large and medium in size,and the scrapers are small in size.5) Only three retouched tool classes are identified,namely choppers,picks and scrapers.Two handaxes were discovered during the excavated season,which may be eroded from the red clay to the surface.6) Modified tools appear to be retouched by direct hammer percussion,mostly unifacially retouched on the one end of the blank.It can be inferred from the excavation that the Pengjiahe Paleolithic site was buried in situ.The stone tool assemblage of the site shows close ties with the Pebble Tool Industry(Main Industry) in South China.Geomorphological and chronological comparison among the sites in the Hanshui River valley indicates that the age of the site should be close to the Middle Pleistocene,which places the Pengjiahe industry to the Lower Paleolithic in China.The Hanshui River drainage area which Pengjiahe Paleolithic site situated is located in the south piedmont of East Qingling Orogenic Zone as well as the climatic transition zone between North and South China.It is also the important region for early hominid occupation,migration and cultural exchange during Pleistocene.The excavation of Pengjiahe site not only enriches the human occupation data in the Hanshui River drainage area,but also bears great significance in studying human occupation behaviors adapted to natural environments in the Middle Pleistocene.Therefore,it is affirmed that the coming excavation of Paleolithic sites and Paleolithic research will give more evidence to the study of early human culture developing pattern,the cultural relationship between North and South China,as well as the early human migration and technique exchange between China and the west World in the Pleistocene.