Middle and late Pleistocene environmental conditions in the vicinity of the Paleolithic Huadian cave in Northeast China

IF 0.9 2区历史学 0 ARCHAEOLOGY

Archaeological Research in Asia Pub Date : 2025-03-14 DOI:10.1016/j.ara.2025.100613

Honghao Niu , Laurent Marquer , Dorothy Sack , Qiankun Quan , Chunxue Wang

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

Understanding interactions between early hominins and their surrounding environment is an important goal in archaeological research. Studies of these interactions provide crucial insights into human evolution, adaptability, cultural development, and ecological impact, offering lessons for both past and present. Huadian Cave, one of the earliest human occupation sites in Northeast China, was inhabited in middle and late Pleistocene. Even though excavation of the cave has yielded numerous middle and late Paleolithic lithic artifacts, the area's paleoenvironmental history has remained poorly understood. This study reconstructs the environmental context around the cave using pollen and charcoal data extracted from its sediments. Results reveal a landscape dominated by shrub-grasslands rich in herbaceous taxa, including Taraxacum (mean 14.0 %), Artemisia (mean 11.1 %), and Asteraceae (mean 11.0 %), with sparse tree cover in the vicinity of the cave. Despite stability of the shrub-grassland vegetation type over time, the relative pollen percentages, total plant abundance derived from pollen concentrations, plant diversity, and evenness revealed by palynological diversity indicate significant fluctuations in relative plant composition percentages. Regional and local fire frequencies both exhibit an increasing trend from middle to late Pleistocene. Comparing results of this research to hominin occupation patterns at the cave and regional faunal variations suggests that hominin use of the cave changed from a temporary refuge in middle Pleistocene to a long-term habitat in the late Pleistocene, and this may be attributed to environmental changes as well as advancements in lithic technologies. An observed sharp decline in plant diversity in the vicinity of the cave during the late Pleistocene, accompanied by an exponential increase in local fire frequencies, indicate that these changes may be linked to hominin gathering preferences and fire usage practices, respectively.

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来源期刊

Archaeological Research in Asia ARCHAEOLOGY-

CiteScore

2.50

自引率

13.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： Archaeological Research in Asia presents high quality scholarly research conducted in between the Bosporus and the Pacific on a broad range of archaeological subjects of importance to audiences across Asia and around the world. The journal covers the traditional components of archaeology: placing events and patterns in time and space; analysis of past lifeways; and explanations for cultural processes and change. To this end, the publication will highlight theoretical and methodological advances in studying the past, present new data, and detail patterns that reshape our understanding of it. Archaeological Research in Asia publishes work on the full temporal range of archaeological inquiry from the earliest human presence in Asia with a special emphasis on time periods under-represented in other venues. Journal contributions are of three kinds: articles, case reports and short communications. Full length articles should present synthetic treatments, novel analyses, or theoretical approaches to unresolved issues. Case reports present basic data on subjects that are of broad interest because they represent key sites, sequences, and subjects that figure prominently, or should figure prominently, in how scholars both inside and outside Asia understand the archaeology of cultural and biological change through time. Short communications present new findings (e.g., radiocarbon dates) that are important to the extent that they reaffirm or change the way scholars in Asia and around the world think about Asian cultural or biological history.