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Caodiaoniu: One of the oldest microblade sites in Northern China曹掉牛:中国北方最早的细石叶遗址之一

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Abstract

The microblade technique is an important technological innovation in the Late Pleistocene, and its geographical distribution and diffusion, as well as the relationship between technological changes and paleoclimatic variability in the Last Glacial Maximum, has given rise to heated debates. Northern China contains a large number and range of microblade sites, though the lack of a robust chronology for archeological sites is a limiting factor for ongoing research. Here, we report multidisciplinary investigations at Caodiaoniu (CDN19), a new microblade site in the Lvliang Mountains of the northern Chinese Loess Plateau. Radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating indicates that the depositional sequence spans from 31.5 to 15.9 thousand years ago (ka). The microblade technology dates to between 30.5 and 19.2 ka, representing one of the oldest microblade sites in northern China and one of the most complete Marine Isotope Stage (MIS) 2 cultural sequences. Human occupations at Caodiaoniu correspond with cold and dry environmental conditions. The evidence from Caodiaoniu is consistent with observations of wide-ranging cultural and technological exchanges between North China and the eastern Eurasian steppe.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology, Taiyuan, for offering us access to lithic remains from the Caodiaoniu site.

Funding

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42071101), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (lzujbky-2021-ey22), and the China Scholarship Council.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730000, China

    Yanqing Deng, Guoqiang Li, Siyi Gou & Weiping Ding

  2. Department of Archeology, Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology, Jena, D-07745, Germany

    Yanqing Deng

  3. Shanxi Provincial Institute of Archeology, Taiyuan, Shanxi, 030001, China

    Haiyun Ren

  4. School of Atmospheric Sciences, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, 610225, China

    He Yang

  5. Institute of Marine Sciences, Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Marine Disaster Prediction and Prevention, Shantou University, Shantou, Guangdong, 515063, China

    Hua Tu

  6. State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Gansu Desertification and Aeolian Sand Disaster Combating, Gansu Desert Control Research Institute, Lanzhou, Gansu, 730070, China

    Yunian Zhang

  7. Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution, Griffith University, Brisbane, 4111, Australia

    Michael D. Petraglia

  8. School of Social Science, University of Queensland, Brisbane, 4072, Australia

    Michael D. Petraglia

  9. Human Origins Program, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C, 20560, USA

    Michael D. Petraglia

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  1. Yanqing Deng
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Contributions

YD: investigation, resources, data curation, methodology, formal analysis, visualization, and writing—original draft and editing; HR: investigation, resources, and methodology; GL: project administration, funding acquisition, investigation, resources, formal analysis, visualization, and writing—original draft and editing; SG: investigation, resources; WD: data curation, and visualization; HY: investigation, resources, data curation; HT: investigation, and writing—review and editing; YZ: resources, data curation; MDP: methodology, and writing—review and editing. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Haiyun Ren or Guoqiang Li.

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Deng, Y., Ren, H., Li, G. et al. Caodiaoniu: One of the oldest microblade sites in Northern China曹掉牛:中国北方最早的细石叶遗址之一. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 15, 167 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-023-01867-5

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