10 - The Middle Pleistocene Archaeological Record of China and Southeast Asia

Summary

INTRODUCTION

This enormous area can be divided into a northern part, comprising China north of the Yangtse River Valley and Qinling Mountains, the Korean Peninsula, and Japan, and a southern, more humid, and warmer part that contains southern China, mainland Southeast Asia, and Indonesia. The Middle Pleistocene archaeological record is still scarce or nonexistent over large parts of both regions, and centred upon a few major sites (see Figure 10.1), by far the most important of which is Locality 1, Zhoukoudian. Chinese prehistorians have often distinguished a Lower and Middle Palaeolithic, as in areas to the west. Assemblages were classified as Middle Palaeolithic by their age (late Middle and early Upper Pleistocene) and their association with hominin remains classified as “archaic Homo sapiens”. Given uncertainties over the age of many Middle Pleistocene sites (see below) and the deeply problematic term “archaic Homo sapiens” (Chapter 11), Gao and Norton (2002) have proposed that all Middle Pleistocene lithic assemblages should be classified as Early Palaeolithic, and this approach is followed here.

NORTH CHINA

Given the profound differences in this region between glacial and interglacial climates (Chapter 7), it is likely that its hominin occupation, particularly in its northern parts, was largely confined to interglacial or interstadial times (Zhu and Zhou 1994).