贵州毕节老鸦洞遗址2013年发掘报告

老鸦洞遗址是贵州省毕节市七星关区一处旧石器时代晚期遗址,该遗址上世纪80年代被发现并发掘,出土大量石制品及动物碎骨。为进一步研究该遗址,明确遗址文化及年代性质,2013年7月至8月,发掘队对该遗址进行了再次系统发掘,出土包括石制品、骨制品、古人类牙齿化石、动物化石、植物果核、碳屑在内的标本两千余件,其中,石制品在制作技术上显示了典型的小石片石器传统特征。另有未统计碎骨上万件。碳十四测年结果表明,这些出土物及遗迹记录了旧石器时代晚期距今37000-20000年,以及距今14000年古人类在老鸦洞内生存的历史,是毕节地区旧石器时代晚期最初阶段古人类生存栖息的证据。多个石制品及碳屑、灰烬富集的层位表明了古人类对该洞穴的长时间反复利用,以及末次冰期最盛期期间人类活动的消退现象。

A Preliminary Report of the Laoya Cave Late Paleolithic Site in Bijie,Guizhou Province

Laoya Cave (Laoya in Chinese means “crow”) is located on the Yun-Gui Plateau in Guizhou Province, southwestern China. This site presents a detailed picture of how ancient occupants survived and organized their subsistence activities during the early phases of the Late Paleolithic. The preserved deposits span a period of approximately 23,000 years in Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 3. More than eight cultural components are identified at the site. AMS radiocarbon dates on animal bones and one charcoal sample indicate that the cave layer sequence represents a temporal interval between roughly 37,060 and 21,000 Cal yr BP, with another short deposition at 14065 Cal yr BP. The lower deposits supposedly represent early Late Paleolithic with anatomically modern Homo sapiens and the blade industrial period (e.g., Shuidonggou Locality 1, Ningxia; Shibazhan site, Heilongjiang; Jinsitai site, Inner Mongolia). The youngest component of the site is chronologically equivalent to the microblade industry in North China (e.g. Maanshan site, Nihewan Basin) but also contains remnant historic deposits, not discussed here. Laoya Cave was discovered in 1983 and first excavated by Chunhua Xu and Yanghui Cai in 1985. The total working area was 24 m2 at the mouth of the cave, and exposed about 1.7 m of heavily cemented Late Paleolithic deposits. A second excavation at Laoya Cave was conducted by the team of Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology and Guizhou Provincial Museum in July and August 2013, and referred to a trench of 8 m2 next to the 1985 excavation area. Paleolithic cultural materials are abundant from the uppermost 1.5 m~10 cm. A small test trench was also dug in the 1985 excavation area, for pursuing deeper deposits below the anthropogenic layer. The Laoya Cave stratigraphic sequence is dominated by human activities. The primary geogenic component is clay or silty clay, typical of limestone and karstic terrains in the Yun Gui Plateau. The accumulation of clay is punctuated by wood ash lenses and dumps (or concentrations) of artifacts and animal bones. Stratigraphic distinctions are recognized largely with color or texture changes of the sediments. In the Laoya Cave, there is a chronological gap in the preserved sequence between 20,995~14,065 Cal yr BP. Pottery chips, animal bones, chipped and ground stone artifacts, and modern human bones on the surface of the current cave deposit indicate a historic and even modern anthropogenic occupation. Numerous cultural features such as small hearths (50~100cm in diameter) from earlier layers and large unlaminated ash dumps lacking charcoal or burned sediments are also identified.