observations on the lower palaeolithic of northeast Asia

Observations on the Lower Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia [and Comments and Reply] Author(s): Seonbok Yi, G. A. Clark, Jean S. Aigner, Marie-Henriette Alimen, R. S. Davis, André Debenath, Gai Pei, Karl L. Hutterer, Fumiko Ikawa-Smith, Jia Lanpo, Kubet Luchterhand, Sarah M. Nelson, George H. Odell, H. D. Sankalia, Myra Shackley, Pow-Key Sohn and Wilhelm G. Solheim II Source: Current Anthropology, Vol. 24, No. 2 (Apr., 1983), pp. 181-202 Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2742576 . Accessed: 25/09/2013 01:24 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The University of Chicago Press and Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Current Anthropology. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 49.140.87.30 on Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:24:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Vol. 24, No. 2, April 1983 ? 1983 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, all rights reserved 0011-3204/83/2402-0001$2.00 Observations on the Lower Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia by Seonbok Yi and G. A. Clark THE STUDY OF THE PALAEOLITHIC of Northeast Asia-Siberia east of the Yenisei River, Mongolia, Manchuria, Korea, Japan, and North China-dates from the 1870s, with the accidental discovery of Pleistocene artifacts and fauna in Irkutsk by the Russian geologist I. D. Cherskii (Larichev 1969). In China and Mongolia, casual 19th-century finds were followed by Western expeditions during the 1920s, such as those of Roy Chapman Andrews and the geological surveys of Johan Gunnar Anderson. However, the number of genuine Palaeolithic sites discovered through the end of World War II remained quite small (e.g., the total number of sites recorded in China was 10-12, of which only 4 had been excavated [Institute of Archaeology 1962]). The delay in the systematic investigation of ancient cultural remains can be attributed to the political upheaval of the earlier part of the 20th century, the remoteness of the most promising Palaeo- lithic loci, and the tendency to emphasize the archaeological investigation of relatively recent time ranges. The end of World War II and the Korean conflict and the establishment of the present sociopolitical orders in Northeast Asia have resulted in a regionwide increase in archaeological SEONBOK Yi is a graduate assistant in the Department of Anthro- pology, Arizona State University (Tempe, Ariz. 85287, U.S.A.). Born in 1957, he received his B.A. from Seoul National University in 1979 and was a Research Associate of the Seoul National Uni- versity Museum in 1979-80. He received his M.A. from Arizona State in 1982. His research interest is Pleistocene prehistory. He has published, with G. A. Clark, "Niche-width Variation in Late Pleistocene/Early Holocene Archaeofaunas from Cantabrian Spain," in Animals and Archaeology 1: Hunters and Their Prey, edited by J. Clutton-Brock and C. Grigson (Oxford: British Archaeological Reports, in press). G. A. CLARK is Professor of Anthropology at Arizona State Uni- versity. He was born in 1944 and educated at the University of Arizona (B.A., 1966; M.A., 1967) and the University of Chicago (Ph.D., 1971). His research interests are paleoecology, human evolution, quantitative methods, and hunter-gatherer adaptations in northern Spain. Among his publications are "Liencres: An Open Station of Asturian Affinity near Santander, Spain" (Quaternaria 21:249-304); with L. Straus, J. Altuna, and J. Ortea, "Ice-Age Subsistence in Northern Spain" (Scientific American 242:142-53); "Multivariate Analysis of 'Telanthropus capensis': Implications for Hominid Sympatry in South Africa" (Quaternaria 22:39-63); with L. Straus, J. Altuna, M. Gonzalez, H. Laville, A. Leroi-Gourhan, M. Menendez, and J. Ortea, "Paleoecology at La Riera" (CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY 22: 655- 82); and "Quantifying Archeological Research," in Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, edited by M. Schiffer, pp. 217- 73 (New York: Academic Press, 1982). The Dresent DaDer was submitted in final form 14 TV 82 research, and since about 1960 a more detailed understanding of the region's prehistory has become possible. As far as the Palaeolithic is concerned, new evidence has revealed a greater diversity and a much wider geographical distribution of homi- nid material culture remains than had previously been sus- pected. In China by 1961, the total number of the Palaeolithic sites exceeded 200 (Institute of Archaeology 1962), and re- searchers in the fields of geology, paleontology, and paleoan- thropology were in a position to establish for the first time the cultural and environmental history of the region during the Pleistocene. In Japan, although the existence of indisputable Lower Palaeolithic sites is not yet confirmed, archaeological research during the last three decades has revealed a complex pattern of variation among well-documented Upper Palaeolithic assemblages (e.g., Oda and Keally 1979). Palaeolithic research in the Korean peninsula dates only to the early 1960s (Sohn 1965, To 1964), and it has been hampered by the limited range of investigation and a lack of support from related natural- science disciplines. At present, only some 28 sites are reported (Kim 1981). Consequently, an adequate understanding of Korean Palaeolithic culture history has not yet been attained. Although Siberia has had a long history of Palaeolithic research, new discoveries by geoarchaeologists since World War II have established a geochronological framework for the Pleistocene in which archaeological remains can be placed with some precision. The improved chrono-stratigraphic grid has allowed for better understanding of the significance of areal variations of (esp. Upper) Palaeolithic assemblages (e.g., Tseitlin 1979). These developments in the study of the Palaeolithic of North- east Asia are remarkable when compared with the state of our knowledge three decades ago. Many areas remain uninvesti- gated, however, and problems such as relationships among local material culture variants within an area and, in extreme cases, the simple determination of the age of a site remain to be resolved. These difficulties are especially severe in the case of the Lower Palaeolithic. Excluding the discoveries in the loess country of central China, the number of well-documented Lower Palaeolithic sites remains very small, and the credibility of some of the industries must be questioned because of limited investigation or the lack of the firm chronometric data (e.g., Ohyi 1978). Because of these problems, it is unreasonable to expect very sophisticated treatment of specific areal, temporal, and cultural topics. Students will find much of the literature very limited from theoretical and methodological perspectives and rather vague when compared with that of better-studied areas. Few definite "cultural" boundaries have been estab- lished; few relationships amongst sites and/or assemblages within this vast area are nt uiihiect ton snme rli.n1te Vol. 24 * No. 2 * April 1983 181 This content downloaded from 49.140.87.30 on Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:24:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions This paper must of course reflect the current situation in the study of the Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia. Shortcomings in the data base can only be rectified by more vigorous and sys- tematic long-term field research. Our objective is simply to illustrate some current issues which have arisen as the result of post-World War II investigation. The first of these is the con- cept of the chopper-chopping-tool tradition and its supposed relationship with the handaxe assemblages of more westerly locales (Movius 1948). Although the accumulation of evidence since World War II has made it difficult to accept Movius's generalizations, his classic 1948 work is still widely cited (e.g., Chard 1974). Moreover, the absence of a critical reevaluation of his essay not only perpetuates an inappropriate representa- tion of the Palaeolithic of Asia, but also contributes to the per- sistence of outdated notions of cultural evolution in the area (e.g., "the culture [of East and South Asia] is in no sense pro- gressive . . .; the region was [characterized by] cultural retar- dation" [Movius 1948:411]). There is no reason to expect Asia (or any other area, for that matter) to have followed the same developmental trajectory as other parts of the world or to sup- pose that only a single "tradition" existed in this vast area. Following an assessment of Movius's work, we will discuss certain aspects of the Palaeolithic of North China to illustrate the complexity of early archaeological remains in a region de- fined by Movius as "the northern area of the chopper-chopping tool tradition." North China is the best-investigated area in all of South and East Asia with regard to the Palaeolithic. Two distinct tool-making "traditions" recently discovered there (Jia, Gai, and You 1972) have implications not only for the study of the Chinese Palaeolithic, but also for the understand- ing of the Palaeolithic of neighboring areas. These studies indicate that the Palaeolithic of Northeast Asia cannot be understood simply as a variety of the chopper-chopping-tool tradition or, indeed, by recourse to any simple unilinear model of cultural evolution. THE NORTHEAST ASIAN PALAEOLITHIC: A BRIEF OVERVIEW In the following summary of recent discoveries (see figure 1) and current conceptions of the Northeast Asian Palaeolithic, we shall stress the Lower Palaeolithic, both because Lower Palaeolithic data have not found their way into the Western literature and because they are important for the development of paradigms for interpreting later Palaeolithic remains. SIBERIA Lower Palaeolithic data from Siberia are quite limited; those of later periods are more numerous and better-known. The sites which are reported to yield Lower Palaeolithic assemblages are located in the Amur and Lena River basins of southern Siberia and include Filimoshki, Kumary I, Ust-Tu, and some other surface finds (Okladnikov and Derevianko 1969, Derevianko 1978). The artifacts from these three sites are made of pebbles and consist for the most part of choppers, chopping tools, and "beaked scrapers." Although they are found in river- laid conglomerates dated to the Middle Pleistocene, they are so primitive in appearance that there is some question whether they are man-made. The limited number of tool "types" and the rudimentary flaking techniques are the main reasons for 100 110 140 KUMARY / ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~45 |0 00 200 300 400 500 MILES ' 0 2 Z00 400 600 KILOMETERS*< X CONIC PROJECTION - 40 NIHEWAN J- .SEUNGLISAN CAVE' IWAJUKU \ l /-' s _ _ -- 6 GONGEYAMAZHOUKOUDIAN CAVE \GONGEYAMA IIU ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~HEUK-WOO-RI CAVE - HOSHINO 1St JARA} 2-OSSHIYUO-G.OL . CHON-GOK-NI <>\ - -C SJAR-0SS-G LA JEOMMAL CAVE : ^r s ,w 9X^t i K~~ ~ ~ ~ ~~~JANG -N [ \- 0- XIAONANHIAI SOKJ N * a F . DINGCUN XACHUAN 0 KEHE&~h~- LANTIAN XIHOUDOU FUKUI CAVE 3 FIG. 1. Northeast Asia, with modern political boundaries and locations of sites mentioned in the text. The Lower and Middle Palaeolithic status of the Japanese sites is contested. 182 CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY This content downloaded from 49.140.87.30 on Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:24:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Yi and Clark: LOWER PALAEOLITHIC OF NORTHEAST ASIA suspicion of the possibility of natural production, along with the context of discovery and the lack of detailed descriptions of the implements themselves (see Kato et al. 1975). Derevianko (1978) and others, however, consider them the products of human activity. It has recently been suggested that Filimoshki cannot be older than Late Kargin Interglacial, 30,000 B.P. (Tseitlin 1979). MONGOLIA Indisputable Lower Palaeolithic remains are not yet known in Mongolia, though prepared platform cores and flakes, discoidal cores, "Mousterian" flakes, and simple plain flakes were re- corded by Soviet expeditions in the 1960s (Okladnikov 1978). These typologically early assemblages are known almost ex- clusively from surface collections. They have been assigned to three chronological stages by comparing their lithic technology and tool morphology with those of assemblages found in Central Asia (Okladnikov 1978). The oldest stage is considered to reflect the archaic stone-working techniques corresponding to late Acheulian or early Mousterian technologies in Western Europe. It has been suggested that they represent an intrusion from the West and perhaps the initial human settlement of Mongolia (Chard 1974). This must remain an open question, however, as these are surface finds. To date, none of these sites has been excavated, nor has any paleoenvironmental research been undertaken. JAPAN There is no evidence for human occupation of Japan prior to about 30,000 B.P., although several sites have been argued by their excavator, Serizawa (e.g., 1978), to contain materials typologically older than this. These claims are vigorously con- tested (e.g., Ohyi 1978). KOREA At present, 5 out of 28 Palaeolithic sites are argued to contain assemblages assigned to the Lower Palaeolithic. However, only the Heuk-Woo-Ri cave site in North Korea is associated with paleontological data which indicate an age of approximately 400,000 to 500,000 years B.P. (Kim and Kim 1974). Since only six artifacts were recovered from this site, it is impossible to make any comparisons with contemporary sites in China. The significance of the site lies in the association of Middle Pleisto- cene artifacts and fauna and in the occurrence of a handaxe- shaped tool (which is in fact a kind of chopping tool) the shape and technical characteristics of which are widely observed in later sites. Although as yet undated, perhaps the most important Palaeolithic site in Korea is Chon-Gok-Ni (Kyung-Ki prov- ince), located on the third terrace of the Hantan River. As the excavation is still in progress, only preliminary reports are available. Surface surveys and four campaigns in 1979, 1980, and 1981 have revealed remarkable complexity in the lithic assemblages, which include about 50 handaxes and cleavers morphologically comparable to those found in Acheulian in- dustries of Europe, western Asia, and Africa (Kim and Chung 1978; Chung 1981). The lithic assemblage of Chon-Gok-Ni is the most important evidence against Movius's hypothesis. The handaxes can be classified into several categories according to technique of manufacture and shape (Bae 1980a and figs. 2-4). As handaxes are associated with various types of tools, such as the "large pointed tools" commonly found in North China and choppers, chopping tools, and other heavy tools made by various techniques, the origin and development of handaxes in Northeast Asia require more detailed analysis of the whole industry. All of these tools form a continuum with regard to both shape and technique of manufacture. The only difference between the "large pointed tools" from North China (e.g., from Lantian and Dingcun) and the handaxes and other tools from Chon-Gok-Ni is the presence/absence and extent of bi- facial flaking (fig. 5). At this point, one may question the utility of the Chinese Lower Palaeolithic tool typology currently in use, which is set up on the basis of morphological characteristics and does not take the process of tool manufacture into account. As Movius (1968) has observed, Chinese tool typologies can be criticized for their vagueness as well as for a failure to take into consideration the functional aspects of lithics. The other Korean sites claimed to be Lower Palaeolithic must be questioned because of the absence of chronometric data, stratigraphic problems, and/or the lack of a clear-cut "diagnostic" lithic assemblage. The potential Lower Palaeo- lithic sites number about five if apparently "noncultural" cave accumulations with Middle Pleistocene faunas and pollen are included. Recent finds of hominid skeletal remains assigned to Homo sapiens neandetalensis and H. sapiens sapiens indicate that other convincing Palaeolithic localities await discovery A 0 5cm ~~~~~~~~~~~C FIG. 2. Handaxes from Chon-Gok-Ni, all made on quartz cobbles. A Type A asymmetrical lanceolate B, Type A, dejeIt; C, Type B, ficron. (Reprinted from Bae 1980a with the permission of the pub- lisher.) Vol. 24 * No. 2 * April 1983 183 This content downloaded from 49.140.87.30 on Wed, 25 Sep 2013 01:24:14 AM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions on the Korean peninsula (see Kim 1974, Kim 1981, Institute of Archaeology 1977). NORTH CHINA The Lower Palaeolithic of North China is better known than any other Asian culture/stratigraphic unit of comparable an- tiquity, and consequently the Chinese chronological framework (table 1) has served as a baseline for the dating and comparison of lithic assemblages from other areas. Detailed information on Chinese Lower Palaeolithic sites has not been made available to the Western world, and discussions of the Chinese Palaeo- lithic based on the Chinese literature must be viewed with extreme caution because of a marked tendency to view as- semblage variation in purely qualitative terms (i.e., to use rare fossiles directeurs to characterize industries and ignore the quan- titative aspects of assemblage variation). However, it is pos- sible to summarize some important Chinese Lower Palaeolithic sites in the context of this article. Of the six sites mentioned below, all except Zhoukoudian are open sites, found in loess deposits. Xihoudu (Hsihoutu), Shanxi, is believed to pre-date the H. erectus-associated assemblages of Zhoukoudian and Lantian (Jia and Yu 1978). The lithic assemblage includes a "large pointed tool" (Bae 1980a). The age of the artifacts has been called into question, mainly because of problems associated with the stratigraphy (Gai, personal communication). Nihewan (Nihowan), Hebei, is a stratified open site with seven main levels. The artifacts are found in the fourth stratum from the bottom, which is believed to date from the Lower Pleistocene; the faunal remains are suggestive of Villafranchian AX 0 5cm C,2 K 0y FIG. ~ 3.Hnae4rmCo-o-i l aeo urzcbls A,TyeD,oat; ,C,TpeB,fcrn (epite ro1 Be190 wihtepriso- o h ulse. age (Gai et al. 1974). You et al. (1979) have described the lithic materials, but a detailed analysis has yet to appear. Some 40 years ago, Western archaeologists discovered a handaxe and a few flakes from the area, the significance of which became the object of some controversy (Breuil 1935, Teilhard de Chardin 1935). Recently, the upper levels at Nihewan have attracted the attention of Chinese archaeologists because of the alleged association of microliths and Equus sanmeniensis, a Middle Pleistocene equid (Gai, personal communication). Lantian (Lant'ien), Shanxi, dated to the Middle Pleistocene, is of course best known for its hominid cranium, assigned to H. erectus lantianensis (Dai et al. 1973). Five different flaking