Newly discovered Palaeolithic artefacts from loess deposits and their ages in Lantian,central China

Eight new Palaeolithic open-air sites were identified and 770 stone artefacts were collected from 2009 to 2011 in the Lantian area of the Bahe River valley, central China. Because the famous Homo erectus fossils were unearthed at the Gongwangling and Chenjiawo localities, and more than 30 Palaeolithic open-air sites were investigated in the 1960s in this region, the catchment of Bahe River is regarded as one of the most important hominin sites from the late early Pleistocene to the middle Pleistocene. These eight newly discovered open-air sites are located at the second(n = 6), third(n = 1) or higher terraces(n = 1) of the Bahe River. The Diaozhai section on the second terrace was sampled in detail. Two samples were collected for optically stimulated luminescence dating(OSL). The OSL results suggest that a buried lithic artefact layer at the Diaozhai site spans approximately 70–30 ka. The lithic assemblage analysis suggests that the stone artefacts were made of local pebbles/cobbles such as greywacke, quartz, sandstone and igneous rocks. The main percussion techniques that were used were direct hard hammer percussion and bi-polar techniques. The lithic artefacts comprise hammer stones, cores, flakes, retouched tools and flaking debris. Acheulian-type large cutting tools(LCTs) such as hand-axes, picks and cleavers were indentified in the Lantian region as well. This is the first time Acheulian-type LCTs from the late Pleistocene have been identified in this region. This study distinguishes age gaps between Western world and East Asian Acheulian-type tools.

Onset of Xiashu loess deposition in southern China by 0.9 Ma and its implications for regional aridification

The Xiashu loess is a typical Quaternary eolian deposit in southem China and represents an important terrestrial paleoclimate archive in this low-latitude monsoon region. However, the chronological framework of Xiashu loess deposition has yet to be established. Determining the timing of the onset of Xiashu loess deposition will allow researchers to better understand late Quaternary aridification across the Asian continent, the evolution of the East Asian monsoon and regional environmental changes in subtropical regions. Therefore, in this study, a systematic chronological study of the Xiashu loess is conducted to answer this question. For the first time, magnetostratigraphic classification reveals that the Matuyama/Bnmhes （M/B） reversal is present in the Xiashu loess at two sites in Jiangsu Province, the Qingshan profile at Yizheng and the Dagang core in Zhenjiang. Based on the results of magnetostratigraphy and optically stimulated luminescence （OSL） dating, the age of the lower boundary of the Xiashu loess is estimated to be approximately 0.9 Ma. Consequently, this Xiashu loess deposit is the oldest reported to date and is comparable in age to the red soil deposit in Xuancheng, Anhui Province. The onset of Xiashu loess deposition by 0.9 Ma represents the further expansion of arid range in Asia in the late Quaternary in response to significant aridification and winter monsoon strengthening in this subtropical region. We suggest that these climate changes were primarily driven by global cooling and an increase in high-latitude ice volume in the Northern Hemisphere and that the initiation of Xiashu loess accumulation was a regional response of southern China to the 0.9 Ma global cooling event.