Robert G. Elston

Dating Shuidonggou and the Upper Palaeolithic blade industry in North China

Shuidonggou is unique within the Chinese Palaeolithic sequence and its assemblage is reminiscent of Upper Palaeolithic core-and-blade technologies in Mongolia and southern Siberia. Limited chronological controls have prevented evaluation of this technology in both the Chinese and greater Eurasian Palaeolithic. Dating of recently discovered hearths at Locality 2 places Shuidonggou firmly at 29,000–24,000 BP, and suggests the spread of the Eurasian large blade technology was primarily from north to south. The concurrent production of small microblade-like bipolar bladelets at the site may also presage the development of a microlithic industry.

Selection, Planning, and Convenience in Lithic Procurement

Thanks to Anne Dowd for organizing this symposium, and all who contributed papers for participating. I am sorry that George Odell was not present to share his vast experience in this field; we all will very much miss his work and insights documented in Anne Dowds comprehensive review of his teaching, research, and publications. His ideas about lithics are summarized in the two companion articles published in the Journal of Archaeological Research (Odell, 2000, 2001), and in his book, Lithic Analysis (Odell, 2004). Odell argued that to understand even the simplest cases of toolstone procurement and distribution requires the consideration of many variables including where toolstone occurs and how it was procured. In this article I take the opportunity to address some of these issues in terms of selection, planning, and convenience.