Paleolithic artifacts from the Nangang locality, Xixia County, Henan, China

Abstract

In September, 2020, an archaeological survey investigating Paleolithic localities in Xixia County, Nanyang City, Henan Province, was carried out by a joint team from the School of Archaeology of Jilin University and the Nanyang City Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute. Surface collection at the Nangang Locality during this survey recovered 51 stone artifacts, including cores, flakes, chunks, and retouched tools. The main industrial features of the assemblage are reduction by hard hammer direct percussion and the bipolar method. Scrapers are the most abundant of the retouched tools, with their retouched by hard hammer done mainly in a forward direction. While small stone artifacts make up the majority of the assemblage, the available geological, stratigraphic, and artifactual evidence suggest that the site dates to the Middle Pleistocene and thus probably belongs to the Early Paleolithic.