中国古人类遗址年代学的研究进展与问题

我国丰富的古人类遗存为研究东亚乃至全球古人类起源、迁徙和演化提供了重要的基础材料与数据。对已发表的2000多处旧石器时代古人类遗址年代学数据的整理和统计分析发现,绝大多数遗址目前仍缺少基本的年代学数据,不足20%的遗址开展过测年,仅10%左右具有相对可靠的年代学数据,只有极少数开展了多种测年方法的交叉定年。对于80多处出土古人类化石的遗址,亦过半存在明显的年代学争议。我们对一些古人类遗址中的常见各种复杂的同沉积和沉积后改造现象进行了详细分析,探讨了我国测年平台和测年队伍建设、考古发掘以及年代学采样与测年方法学等方面存在的问题,及其对遗址年代学研究的可能影响。基于此,笔者提出改善我国古人类年代学研究现状的可能措施,希望可以抛砖引玉,引发对该研究领域更多的关注和思考。

Progress and issues of chronological studies of human fossil sites in China

The abundant ancient human remains in China provide important basic evidence and data for the study of the human origin, migration and evolution in East Asia or even the world. However, based on the compilation and statistical analysis of the published chronological data of more than 2000 Paleolithic and human fossil sites, we surprisingly found that most of these sites in China have never been dated, and less than 20% of them have carried out dating work. In addition, only about 10% of these sites have relatively reliable chronological data, but only with a small proportion have even carried out cross-dating with multiple dating methods. For more than 80 sites where human fossils were unearthed, the geochronometry data of more than a half still remain controversial. Here, we conducted a detailed analysis of the common complex syn-deposition and post-deposition reworking phenomena in some paleolithic and human fossil sites, especially the cave sites, and discussed the issues of the insufficient dating platform and geochronological researchers in China, the archaeological excavation process, and the chronological sampling and dating methodology, as well the possible ill effects on the chronological study of the Paleolithic and human fossils sites in China by them. Then, possible measures and suggestions for the future improvement in anthropological chronology research in China have been proposed. We hoped that these improving suggestions may attract more attention and deeper thinking for the perspectives of this research field.