THE EPIPALEOLITHIC IN CHINA

BY

ZHANG SENSHUI (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Academia Sinica)

Abstract A number of sites in various parts of China, especially in South China, have yielded stone tool assemblages that exhibit Upper Paleolithic characteristics but date signiŽcantly after the beginning of the Holocene. Such remains show that the transition to settled, food-producing lifeways did not occur at the same rate in all areas. Cave-dwelling hunter-Žsher-gatherer populations continued to exist simultaneously with early agricul- turalists; these hunter-Žsher-gatherer populations used fewer types of stone tools than their predecessors, but made more extensive use of bone and antler in their toolkits. The continued existence of these populations reects environmental diversity and the specialization of adaptive strategies.

Introduction

Chinese Paleolithic archeology has a history of over eighty years. For a long period, archeologists believed that Chinese Paleolithic cultures had developed linearly and gradually from an area in North China centered on the site of Zhoukoudian . Based on an observed inconsistency between the primitive level of the stone artifacts from the Zhang’ertang site in Tongliang , Sichuan Province, and the late date (21,550 ± 300 b.p. by C-14) of the site, the author sug- gested that one should pay attention to an alternative possibility, namely, that the development of Chinese Paleolithic cultures was quite complex, with unequal timing and many pathways (Li and Zhang 1981). During the past twenty years, over ten localities with Late Paleolithic type remains have been found in Yunnan, Guizhou, Hainan, Hebei, and Taiwan (the Chaoyin cave in Taiwan, found in 1969, is later in date than the others). However, their geological ages range from the Early to Middle Holocene, and so it is therefore not suitable to refer to their assemblages as Paleolithic cultures or Paleolithic industries. Since

© Brill, Leiden 2000 JEAA 2, 1–2 52 zhang senshui the remains from these sites are beyond the Paleolithic age in date, the author has suggested several times that we should not simply describe them as Paleolithic or Old Stone Age cultures; instead, we may use the term “Old Stone Artifacts Culture ” to distinguish them from the ordinary Paleolithic cultures (Zhang Senshui 1988). The term “Paleolithic” refers to the human cultures in the Pleistocene; since the 1980s, the term “Old Stone Artifact Cultures” has referred, on the one hand, to the remains of uncertain date in the Paleolithic age, and on the other hand, to the remnants of Paleolithic cultures in the Holo- cene—that is to say, to artifact assemblages exhibiting the features of Paleolithic cultures but of Holocene date. There is no standard name for these artifact complexes in the Holocene with mainly Paleolithic features. Some people call them “pre-ceramic cultures” (Song Wenxun 1969; Huang Shiqiang 1991), “continued form of Late Paleolithic culture” (Li Guangzhou 1984), or “aceramic culture” (Zhang Zhiheng 1992). Terms such as pre-ceramic or aceramic culture in West Asia, or pre-ceramic culture in Japan, actually refer to the Late Paleolithic cultural remains, and they do not include the cultures with “old stone artifacts” later than 10,000 years ago. Moreover, the term “non-ceramic culture” does not apply precisely to the materials from the localities here under discussion, as some ce- ramic pieces have been found. At the same time, these sites cannot be considered as regional Early Neolithic cultures either, because they not only display a distinct difference from Neolithic cultures, but their age also extends as late as 5,000-4,000 years b.p, the time period of the Middle and Late Neolithic according to the chronology of Chinese Neolithic archeology. It is acceptable to designate them as belonging to the “continuous types of late Paleolithic culture,” which was put forward by Li Guangzhou (1984). Such a nomenclature reects both their features and their age. The author believes the situation could be improved if one speaks of “remnant types” rather than of “continuous types”; however, the author does not want to use either of these long- winded terms. Similar remains have been found in Europe where they are called “Epipaleolithic cultures” or “Epipaleolithic industries.” F or the convenience of academic exchange, the author would like to use this same term to describe these cultures in China (Zhang Senshui 1995).

On post-12,000 b.p. Epipaleolithic sites in China

There are at least 15 localities in China with artifact assemblages dated later than 12,000 b.p. that display Paleolithic cultural features (see Table 1),