Qilu Network Lightning News on February 21, the Department of Culture and Tourism of Shandong Province recently announced the five major archaeological discoveries in 2021. Among them, archaeologists excavated paleolithic ivory and other animal fossils and stone products and other cultural relics at the "Yishui Baoshan Site". This discovery fills the gap in Paleolithic archaeology in Shandong Province and northern China.
▲The location of the ruins of The Trek Mountain
The Yishui Mountain site is located in Linyi, Shandong Province, and was discovered in July 2020. From April to June 2021, archaeologists conducted the first phase of archaeological excavations. Excavated cultural relics include stone products, animal fossils and a certain number of bone products. Preliminary dating data is 60,000-100,000 years old, and the cultural era belongs to the middle of the Paleolithic period.
▲Excavation of the Trek Mountain Site in May 2021
In 2021, archaeologists excavated and collected more than 5,000 stone products and animal fossils at the Yishui Baoshan site. Types of stone products include hammering, smashing stone cores, disc-shaped stone cores and stone chips, broken blocks, debris, etc. Tools can be found in stone balls, scrapers, choppers, sharpeners, stone drills and serrated shapers. Most of the stone materials are veined quartz, produced in the bedrock strip of Xiba Mountain 2 km away.
▲Stone pieces excavated from the cultural layer of the Baoshan site
The excavation site of Yishui Baoshan site covers an area of about 55 square meters, which is divided into two areas, north and south, and the difference in surface height between the two is about 3.5 meters. The entire formation is more than 8 meters thick and divided into 14 layers from top to bottom. The northern area includes the upper accumulation of the cultural layer, mainly the first ~ layer, the thickness of the accumulation is 4.08 meters, stone products, and no animal fossils have been seen. The first ~ layer can be seen in the southern section, of which the first layer can be seen in the ancient rhombus molars and incisors, the mandible of the woolly rhinoceros and a large number of stone products.
▲ Ivory shovels were unearthed in the lower cultural layer
The lower part has not yet been cleaned up the cultural layer, according to the preliminary cleaning of the 4 trenches dug in the north-south direction to the bottom gravel layer, of which the south adjacent area of the trench 3 revealed the fossils of the jaw and femur of the ancient diamond tooth elephant, and a large number of stone products and animal fossils such as cattle and deer were scattered around. Trench 2 cleared out a large shovel made of ancient diamond-toothed elephant incisors, which was regular and rare. By the dating method of uranium system and photorejusting, the dating data of the tooth shovel and the soil sample of the same layer are 99,000 and 104,000 years old, respectively.
▲Trench 2 and Trench 3
According to reports, the discovery of the Baoshan site has filled the gap in Paleolithic archaeology in Shandong and northern China, and is the most abundant culturally rich middle Paleolithic relics found in Shandong Province. The accumulation of layers and the large span of cultural era indicate that the site has been repeatedly used and occupied for a long time. The number of excavated stone products and animal fossils is rich and diverse, and contains bone products made of animal bones, horns, teeth and so on. It is likely that there are multiple surfaces of ancient human activity in the accumulation of cultures, and there are human behaviors that use fire and dismember animals. In particular, the mixed distribution of animal fossils and a large number of stone tools, mainly the skeletons of ancient rhombodons, provides extremely important archaeological materials for the restoration and study of the use of sites by ancient humans in the Middle and Late Pleistocene and the way of livelihood.
The excavation unit of the Bashan site is the Shandong Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, and the cooperating unit is the Yishui County Culture and Tourism Bureau. The follow-up excavation and research of the Tsukiyama site will be carried out gradually and systematically.
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In 2021, the five new archaeological discoveries in Shandong Province were announced