Abstract
Stone Implements of Choukoutien—More abundant archœlogical material and further field work have made desirable a new and supplementary exposition of the facts relating to the stone industry of the Peking man deposits by P. Teilhard de Chardin and Dr. W. C. Pei (Bull. Geol. Soc. China, 11, No. 4). The sediments of the Choukoutien Locality 1 (Sinanthrofms cave) are a massive hard breccia in which at least three cultural zones can be distinguished. The entire deposit of Zone A is of red, yellow and black banded sandy clay in which Aa, by a dense accumulation of quartz chips and burnt bones, is strikingly similar to the classical culture layers of the western European caves. Zone B, remarkably interesting stratigraphic-ally, has yielded but a small series of flaked boulders (choppers). Zone C, with the implements of which this communication deals chiefly, is especially significant as the artefacts were discovered in association with Sinanthrofrus remains. Zone C has exactly the same lithological character as Zone A. The fauna collected in association with ashes and stone artefacts is abundant and characteristic (Equus sanmeniensis, Rhinoceros ‘sinensis’, R. of. tichorhinus (?), Elephas nomadicus, etc.) Outside the three zones, artefacts are found from place to place and more may be forthcoming. In Zone C several thousands of minor fragments of stone have been found and more than a hundred chipped or intact foreign boulders. The stone is green sandstone, commonly, but also vein quartz and, exceptionally, quartzite or quartz-porphyric rock. Provisionally the specimens are classified as flaked boulders, truncated boulders, choppers, quartz cores, scrapers, pointed implements, and chipped or flaked limestone pieces, possibly anvils or hammer stones. The provisional opinion is expressed that the industry of Zone C moderately, but distinctly, exceeds what would be expected to be the most primitive recognisable human industry. The makers already had some definite methods of choosing, breaking and adapting stone to several uses; but in so doing they obeyed, rather than mastered, their material.
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Research Items. Nature 130, 851–853 (1932). https://doi.org/10.1038/130851a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/130851a0