How did the Ashel axe, 130,000 years ago, witness the fusion of early human cultures?

The Pirao site has found a large number of hand axes and thin-bladed axes with regular shapes and mature technology, which are the most typical cultural remains of the late Ashel stage found in East Asia, and are also the highest known Ashel technology products in the world, which have put a stop to the "Movis Line" controversy that lasted for more than half a century.

"The Pirao site has found a large number of hand axes and thin-bladed axes with mature forms and mature technology, which are the most typical cultural relics of the late Ashel stage found in East Asia, and are also the highest known Ashel technology products in the world, which paint a rest for the 'Morvis Line' controversy for more than half a century, connecting the Asheli cultural transmission belt between the East and the West, which is of special significance for understanding the migration and cultural exchange of ancient people on the east and west sides of Eurasia."

Zheng Zhexuan, director of the Paleolithic Research Office of the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and executive leader of the Pirao Site Archaeological Project, said in an exclusive interview with the China News Agency 'Dongxi Qing' a few days ago that the discovery of the Piluo site in Daocheng County, Ganzi Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, provides physical evidence for revealing the historical process of early human conquest of the high-altitude extreme environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

The interview transcript is summarized below:

China News Service: As a large Paleolithic wilderness site located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, what is the significance of the discovery of the Pirlo site?

Zheng Zhexuan: The Pirao site is currently the largest and most abundant Paleolithic site found on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and its discovery has achieved a breakthrough in paleolithic archaeology on the Western Sichuan Plateau. With an average elevation of 3,750 meters above sea level and an area of about 1 million square meters, the site dates back at least 130,000 years, making it rare for a single Paleolithic site of this magnitude to be so large. Within the 200 square meters that have been excavated, tens of thousands of stoneworks have been excavated and 7 consecutive cultural layers have been discovered. Overall, the Pilo site is a rare super-large Paleolithic wilderness site with a special spatio-temporal location, a grand scale, well-preserved strata, a clear cultural sequence, rich relics, distinctive technical characteristics, and the superposition of various cultural factors, which is of great academic significance.

Excavation site at the Pirlo site. Courtesy of respondents

It is particularly important that the Pilo site has found a large number of hand axes and thin-bladed axes with a regular form and mature technology, which are the most typical cultural relics of the late Ashel stage found in East Asia, and are also the highest known Asheli technology products in the world, which have drawn a rest for more than half a century of the "Movis Line" controversy, connecting the Asheli cultural transmission belt between the East and the West, which is of special significance for understanding the migration and cultural exchange of ancient people on the east and west sides of Eurasia.

Pirro Ruins Ashley Tool Combination. Courtesy of respondents

At the same time, the Piluo site has completely preserved and systematically demonstrated the Paleolithic cultural development process of "simple stone stone stone piece combination - Ashley technology system - small stone stone tool system", which also provides physical evidence for revealing the historical process of early human conquest of the high-altitude extreme environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

China News Service: How did the complete ashori technical remains found at the Pilo site break through the "Morvis line" hypothesis?

Zheng Zhexuan: "Ashley" is a technological model in Paleolithic culture, dating from about 1.7 million to 100,000 years ago, named after Saint-Ascher, which was first discovered in France. The most typical Ashley technology system is mainly a combination of hand axe, thin blade axe, pickaxe, its symmetry, neatness, and the pursuit of exquisiteness and the implementation of technology, reflecting the early human cognition, mastery and even aesthetic ability of technology, is recognized as the first standardized processing of heavy tools in human history, representing the highest technical level of early human evolution to Homo erectus stone tool processing.

In the 1940s, Harvard Anthropologist Harram Morvis hypothesized that there were two different cultural traditions and cultural zones in the East and west in the early Paleolithic period of the Old World, and the boundary between the two cultural regions ran roughly through the northern part of the Indian Peninsula in a northwest-southeast direction, which was called the "Morvis Line". The hypothesis holds that in the Paleolithic Period, The European, Middle Eastern, and African regions west of the line were advanced areas of early human culture, represented by the Ashel hand axe, and an advanced cultural circle that could master advanced tool-making techniques; while China and other regions east of the "Morvis Line" were "marginal areas of cultural lag" characterized by the tradition of making simple smashers, and lacked more elaborate stone tool technologies such as hand axes.

With the advancement of archaeological work, some Ashel remains have been found in China and the East Asian region where the Korean Peninsula is located, but there are views in the international academic community that such stone tools can only be called "asher-like technology". The typical Ashel relics found at the Pilo site fill the key gaps and missing links of the technical system, connecting the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent, China and the Korean Peninsula of the Ashel cultural transmission belt, which has special value and significance for understanding the migration of ancient people and cultural communication and exchange, and completely breaking the "Morvis Line" hypothesis.

The site of Piró collects the remains of Ashelius. Courtesy of respondents

In fact, the technology of the Paleolithic Age is not advanced or backward, and early humans will choose the tools that are most suitable for the environment and suitable for themselves in the process of adapting to nature. Whether it is a hand axe or a smasher, as long as it can ensure the survival, development and reproduction of the crowd, it is the most suitable tool, and distinguishing between advanced and backward is a false proposition.

China News Service: The Piluo site is located on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at an altitude of 3,750 meters, and what key role did its discovery play in studying the historical process of early human conquest of high-altitude extreme environments?

Zheng Zhexuan: Until a few years ago, the international academic community generally believed that the human conquest of the Tibetan Plateau was after the Agricultural Revolution, that is, about 10,000 years ago. Because in the previous understanding, the harsh conditions of the Tibetan Plateau were too challenging for the rather inefficient early Paleolithic humans. In recent years, the research results of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou University and other units have pushed the time of early humans to ascend to the Tibetan Plateau to about 190,000 years ago.

Vista view of the Pirot ruins.

The current excavation results reveal that the Pirot site has 7 consecutive cultural layers, complete preservation and systematic display of the Paleolithic cultural development process, including at least three different stone tool industrial systems, preliminary photoreflection dating results show that the upper strata of the site are no later than 130,000 years ago, and for the first time established a coherent and iconic Paleolithic cultural sequence of a specific period in southwest China.

The Pirot site strata and some relics. Photo courtesy of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage

Previous research results have tended to believe that even if early humans were able to climb the Tibetan Plateau in the Paleolithic Age, it was a random, accidental situation that could not survive for a long time. The discovery of successive cultural layers at the Pilo site suggests that early humans repeatedly operated here over a period of about 100,000 years, which provides rich material for studying the historical process of early human conquest of the Tibetan Plateau. At the same time, a variety of different stone tool technology systems converged here, indicating that early humans used a variety of ways to adapt to the extreme environment of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, and their cognitive ability, adaptability, and survival strategies for nature were more flexible than ever imagined.

China News Service: How did the remains of the Ashley technology found at the Pilo site witness the integration of early human cultures?

Zheng Zhexuan: The combination of simple stone core stones excavated from the Pirlo site is very strongly related to early humans in south China, and the population represented may have ascended to the Tibetan Plateau from south China; and the study of the ashery technology transmission route shows that the ashori technology remains at the Pirao site are likely to interact with the Indo-Pakistani subcontinent; the appearance of small stone tools and small two-sided tools at the Pyrrho site also shows a connection with northern China.

The three-stage change process of the relics of the Pirot site. Courtesy of respondents

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where the Pirot site is located, is located at the crossroads of east-west exchanges, and the above discoveries, combined with its special geographical location, can prove that the Paleolithic Age, at least the eastern edge of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is not a barren land and cultural desert, but a place where cultural exchanges gather, and the size of the population, the richness of culture, and the frequency of cultural exchanges are beyond the cognition of people in the past.

In fact, in the Paleolithic Era, the world does not care about countries, people, crowd migration is multi-directional, complex, early human beings through continuous migration, exchange, integration, evolution, better survival in the common homeland - the earth, but also continue to promote the continued development of mankind, and gradually formed the current us. Dating back millions of years, human beings are all of the same root, and the archaeological excavation results of the Pilo site also reflect the concept of "community of human destiny" to a certain extent.

Respondent Profiles:

China News Service reporter Wang Lei photographed

Zheng Zhexuan, deputy director of the Institute of Archaeology of the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, director of the Paleolithic Research Office, executive leader of the archaeological project of the Piluo site, undergraduate and graduate students studied in the School of Archaeology of Peking University, and has been working in the front line of field archaeological excavations for a long time.

Source: China News Network