Taphonomic Perspectives on the Susbsistence Transition between Archaic and Modern Humans in Upper Pleistocene Northeast Asia

Rutgers University New Brunswick, New Brunswick NJ

Investigators

Abstract

Under the supervision of Dr. Robert Blumenschine, Christopher Norton will analyze the faunal remains from two important Northeast Asian Upper Pleistocene sites: Zhoukoudian Upper Cave (China) and Hanaizumi (Japan). Zhoukoudian is comprised of a series of sites, with the best-known being Locality 1, commonly referred to as the home base of Homo erectus. An equally important site to the debate over the evolution of modern humans is Zhoukoudian Upper Cave (ca. 34,000 - 10,000 BP) that currently represents the earliest example of human burials in Northeast Asia. In addition to a wide assortment of human remains, a plethora of artifactual materials (e.g., stone tools, a bone needle, perforated stone and bone ornaments, red ochre for painting) and a collection of faunal remains were discovered in the same context. Hanaizumi (ca. 35,000 - 20,000 BP) is an open-air site located in northeast Honshu in present-day Japan that exposed fossilized animal bones and plant remains in a peat bog. Although the excavators noted that few stone artifacts were associated with the flora and fauna, it has been suggested that wooden and bone implements were used instead. Analysis of the faunal accumulations from both Zhoukoudian Upper Cave and Hanaizumi is important for a number of reasons. First, although zooarchaeological research is common in the Western Old World, the traditional emphasis for Pleistocene deposits from East Asia has been limited largely to the production of taxonomic lists. Accordingly, no recent zooarchaeological studies exist in Northeast Asian prehistoric research that addresses Late Paleolithic hunter-gatherer subsistence patterns. Second, due to the fact that a significant number of theoretical and methodological advances have occurred in the field of zooarchaeology over the course of the past three decades, this study will serve to incorporate many of these applications for the first time to the analysis of the Zhoukoudian Upper Cave and Hanaizumi faunal assemblages. Third, the taxonomic lists created by different researchers have resulted in variation and confusion regarding paleoenvironmental reconstructions. This study will afford a closer examination as to how the fauna present in these assemblages actually reflect the paleoenvironment of the region between 35,000 - 10,000 BP.