A speculation on the Mid-Pleistocene Hominin occupation of the Korean peninsula: A new discovery from the Sannori site at Nonsan City

Abstract

A new palaeolithic locality, the Sannori Site, was discovered in the course of excavating the features of Bronze Age and later Joseon period in the Nonsan City area. The sediments of the Sannori site contain, as well as small numbers of lithic artifacts, several wedge-shaped cracks indicative of the cold and dry Upper Pleistocene environment of the Korean Peninsula. The lithic specimens demonstrate very primitive and unpatterned(Mode 1) modification and were retrieved from surface or out of their primary contexts. Henceforth, the reliable age of the lithic specimens are not currently crystal-clear. The calculated OSL dates indicates the artifact-containing sediments were formed earlier than the MIS 5 though, and possibly during the MIS 6 or far older dates. While there lacks archaeological evidence undisputedly older than MIS 5 in Korea, the Sannori site and its lithic speciments adumbrates the earlier occupation of hominin before the last interglacial. It is anticipated that more well-preserved and reliable archaeological record will be discovered around the inner Hoseo area and can furnish an explicatory background to demonstrate when and how the initial hominin occupation of the Korean Peninsula occurred.