Abstract
More than ten thousand bone fragments were recovered from the Lingjing site, Henan Province, during 2005 and 2006. A taphonomic analysis of the faunal remains strongly indicates that hominids have a dominant role in the accumulation and modification of the assemblage. Based on the taphonomic and zooarcheological characteristics of the animal remains, including species richness, mortality patterns, skeletal element profiles, and bone surface-modifications, and on the local ecology, we suggest that the Lingjing site is a Middle Paleolithic kill-butchery site rather than a home base for early humans. The presence of large numbers of stone artifacts may therefore signify a strong sense of planning and farsightedness in the subsistence strategies of early human groups. The Lingjing site is presently the only taphonomically-identified, Middle Paleolithic kill-butchery site known in North China.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Lewin R, Foley R A. Principles of Human Evolution. 2nd ed. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004
Bunn H T, Kroll E M. Systematic butchery by Plio-Pleistocene hominids at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. Curr Anthropol, 1986, 27: 431–452
Binford L R. Nunamiut Ethnoarchaeology. New York: Academic Press, 1978
Bartram L E. Perspectives on skeletal part profiles and utility curves from eastern Kalahari ethnoarchaeology. In: Hudson L, ed. From Bones to Behavior: Ethnoarchaeological and Experimental Contributions to the Interpretation of Faunal Remains. Illinois: Center for Archaeological Investigations, 1993. 115–137
Isaac G L, Crader D C. To what extent were early hominids carnivorous? An archaeological perspective. In: Hardinger R S O, Teleki G, eds. Omnivorous Primates. New York: Columbia University Press, 1981. 37–103
Lyman R L. Vertebrate Taphonomy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994
Gifford D P. Taphonomy and paleoecology: A critical review of archaeology’s sister disciplines. In: Schiffer M B, ed. Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol.4. New York and London: Academic Press, 1981. 365–438
Domínguez-Rodrigo M, Barba R, Egeland C P. Deconstructing Olduvai: A Taphonomic Study of the Bed I Sites. New York: Springer, 2007
Domínguez-Rodrigo M, Pickering T R, Semaw S, et al. Cutmarked Bones from Pliocene Archaeological Sites at. Gona, Afar, Ethiopia: Implications for the Function of the World’s Oldest Stone Tools. J Hum Evol, 2005, 48: 109–121
Li Z Y. A Primary Study on the stone artefacts of Lingjing site excavated in 2005 (in Chinese). Acta Anthropol Sin, 2007, 2: 138–154
Li Z Y, Dong W. Mammalian fauna from the Lingjing Paleolithic Site in Xuchang, Henna Province (in Chinese). Acta Anthropol Sin, 2007, 26: 345–360
Gao X, Norton C J. A critique of the Chinese “Middle Palaeolithic”. Antiquity, 2002, 76: 397–412
Norton C J, Gao X, Feng X W. The East Asian Middle Paleolithic Reexamined. In: Camps M, Chauhan P R, eds. Sourcebook of Paleolithic Transitions: Methods, Theories, and Interpretations. New York: Springer, 2010. 245–254
Zhang S Q. Taphonomic study of the faunal remains from the Lingjing Site, Xuchang, Henan Province (in Chinese). Dissertation for the Doctoral Degree. Beijing: Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2009
Brain C K. The Hunters or the Hunted? An Introduction to African Cave Taphonomy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981
Isaac G L. The archaeology of human origins. Adv World Archaeol, 1984, 3: 1–87
Norton C J, Zhang S Q, Zhang Y, et al. Distinguishing Hominin and Carnivore Signatures in the Plio-Pleistocene Faunal Record (in Chinese). Acta Anthropol Sin, 2007, 26: 183–192
Andrews P. Owls, Caves, and Fossils: Predation, Preservation, and Accumulation of Small Mammal Bones in Caves, with An Analysis of the Pleistocene Cave faunas from Westbury-sub-Mendip, Somerset, UK. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990
Sanders W J, Trapani J, Mitani J C. Taphonomic aspects of crowned hawk-eagle predation on monkeys. J Hum Evol, 2003, 44: 87–105
Behrensmeyer A K. Taphonomy and hunting. In: Nitecki M H, Nitecki D V, eds. The Evolution of Human Hunting. New York: Plenum Press, 1987. 423–450
Behrensmeyer A K. Bones through Time: The Importance of Biotic versus Abiotic Taphonomic Processes in the Vertebrate Fossil Record. In: Renzi D, Alonso M, Belinchon M, et al., eds. Current topics on Taphonomy and Fossilization. Valencia: Proceedings of the International Conference Taphos, 2002. 297–304
Potts R. Early Hominid Activities at Olduvai Gorge. New York: Adline de Gruyter, 1988
Hanks J. The Struggle for Survival. New York: Mayflower Books, 1979
Haynes G. Longitudinal Studies of African Elephant Death and Bone Deposits. J Archaeol Sci, 1988, 15: 131–157
Berger J. Ecology and catastrophic mortality in wild horses: Implications for interpreting fossil assemblages. Science, 1983, 220: 1403–1404
Sinclair A R E. The African Buffalo. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977
Cruz-Uribe K. Distinguishing hyena from hominid bone accumulations. J Field Archaeol, 1991, 18: 467–486
Lacruz R, Maude G. Bone accumulations at brown hyena (Parahyaena brunnea) den sites in the Makgadikgadi Pans, Northern Botswana: Taphonomic, behavioral and palaeoecological implications. J Taphonomy, 2005, 3: 43–54
Selvaggio M M. The archaeological implications of water-cached hyena kills. Curr Anthropol, 1998, 39: 380–383
Zhang S Q, Li Z Y, Zhang Y, et al. Mortality profiles of the large herbivores from the Lingjing Xuchang Man Site, Henan Province and the early emergence of the modern human behaviors in East Asia. Chinese Sci Bull, 2009, 54: 3857–3863
Steele T E. Red deer: Their ecology and how they were hunted by Late Pleistocene hominids in Western Europe. Dissertation for the Doctoral Degree. Stanford: Stanford University, 2002
Klein R G. The Human Career. 3rd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009
Speth J D. Hunting Pressure, Subsistence Intensification, and Demographic Change in the Levantine Late Middle Paleolithic. In: Goren-Inbar N, Speth J D, eds. Human Paleoecology in the Levantine Corridor. Oxford: Oxbow Press, 2004. 149–166
O’Connell J F, Hawkes K, Jones B. Patterns in the distribution, site structure, and assemblage composition of Hadza kill-butchering sites. J Archaeol Sci, 1992, 19: 319–345
Zhang Y, Norton C J, Zhang S Q, et al. Applications of Zooarchaeological Counting Units to Ma’anshan Faunal assemblage (in Chinese). Acta Anthropol Sin, 2008, 27: 79–90
Domínguez-Rodrigo M. Meat-eating by early hominids at the FLK 22 Zinjanthropus site, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania: An experimental approach using cut mark data. J Hum Evol, 1997, 33: 669–690
Lupo K D, O’Connell J F. Cut and tooth mark distributions on large animal bones: Ethnoarchaeological data from the Hadza and their implications for current ideas about early human carnivory. J Archaeol Sci, 2002, 29: 85–109
Li Z Y, Chen S. Use-wear analysis confirms the use of Palaeolithic bone tools by the Lingjing Xuchang Early Human. Chinese Sci Bull, 2010, 55: 2282–2289
Binford L R. In pursuit of the past: Decoding the archaeological record. California: University of California Press, 1983
Andresen J M, Byrd B F, Elson M D, et al. The Deer Hunters: Star Carr Reconsidered. World Archaeol, 1981, 13: 31–46
Pitts M. Hides and antlers: A new look at the gatherer-hunter site at Star Carr, North Yorkshire. World Archaeol, 1979, 11: 32–42
Bunn H T. Early Pleistocene hominid foraging strategies along the ancestral Omo River at Koobi Fora, Kenya. J Hum Evol, 1994, 27: 247–266
Domínguez-Rodrigo M. Butchery and kill sites. In: Pearsall D M, ed. Encyclopedia of Archaeology. California: Academic Press, 2008. 948–953
Fiore L, Bondioli A, Coppa R, et al. Taphonomic analysis of the Late Early Pleistocene bone remains from Buia (Dandiero Basin, Danakil Depression, Eritrea): Evidence for large mammal and reptile butchering. In: Abbate E, Woldehaimanot Y, Libsekal Y, et al., eds. A Step Towards Human Origins: The BuiaHomo One-Million-Years Ago in the Eritrean Danakil Depression (East Africa), Milano: Dipartimento di Science della Terra, 2004. 89–97
Chazan M, Horwitz L K. Finding the Message in Intricacy: The Association of Lithics and Fauna on. Lower Paleolithic Multiple Carcass Sites. J Anthropol Archaeol, 2006, 25: 436–447
Delagnes A, Lenoble A, Harmand S, et al. Interpreting pachyderm single carcass sites in the African Lower and Early Middle Pleistocene record: A multidisciplinary approach to the site of Nadung’a 4 (Kenya). J Anthropol Archaeol, 2006, 25: 448–465
Blehr O. Communal hunting as a prerequisite for caribou (wild reindeer) as a human resource. In: Leslie B, Davis L B, Reeves B, eds. Hunters of the Recent Past. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990. 304–326
Voormolen B. Ancient hunters, modern butchers: Schöningen 13II — 4, a kill-butchery site dating from the northwest European Lower Palaeolithic. Dissertation for the Doctoral Degree. Leiden: Leiden University, 2008
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com
Rights and permissions
This article is published under an open access license. Please check the 'Copyright Information' section either on this page or in the PDF for details of this license and what re-use is permitted. If your intended use exceeds what is permitted by the license or if you are unable to locate the licence and re-use information, please contact the Rights and Permissions team.
About this article
Cite this article
Zhang, S., Gao, X., Zhang, Y. et al. Taphonomic analysis of the Lingjing fauna and the first report of a Middle Paleolithic kill-butchery site in North China. Chin. Sci. Bull. 56, 3213–3219 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-011-4718-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11434-011-4718-2