泥河湾层中新发现一处旧石器地点

NEW PALAEOLITHIC SITE FROM THE NIHEWAN (NIHOWAN) BEDS

半个多世纪以来,在泥河湾层中寻找早更新世时期的人类遗迹,已成为中、外许多科学家非常关心的一个问题。近几年来,在泥河湾村附近,大量古文化遗物从属于下更新统的泥河湾层中发现了。新的发现为旧石器时代考古学和第四纪地质学又增添了新的内容。

For over half a century people have been paying a good deal of attention to the Nihewan (Nihowan) Beds. In the spring of 1981, a palaeolithic site was discovered from the Nihewan Beds of the so-called Lower Nihewan Formation of early pleistocene in situ. There are a lot of stone implements at the site. The site named Donggutuo (IVPP Loc. 81012) itself situates Xujiapo (a local name, Lat. 4013'22', Long. 11440'11') of the northwest of the Donggutuo Village which lies some 4 kilometres irom the well-known Nihewan Village and is on the right bank of the Sanggan River in Yangyuan County, Hebei Province. The stone artifacts were yielded in the greyish deposits about 45 metres below the original topographic surface and are associated with Palaeoloxodon sp., Equus sanme-niensis, Coelodonta antiquitatis, Bison sp. etc.. According to the magnetostratigraphic study, the culture zone of the Donggutuo site was set up before the Jaramillo event, that is about 1 million years BP. The new discovery suggests that the remains of Homo erectus itself might be found from the Nihewan Beds in it not distant future.