Archaeological Investigations in the Nihewan Basin

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With support from the National Science Foundation, Dr. Schick and her colleagues will conduct one season of archaeological fieldwork in the Nihewan Basin, Hebei Province, northern China. This region holds some of the earliest documented archaeological evidence for early hominid occupation of eastern Asia. A number of sites from the Early and Middle Pleistocene, ranging from approximately 1.0 to 0.5 million years in age and been identified and several have been excavated within the past two decades. The Nihewan basin is particularly important because of the excellent conditions of preservation at both archaeological and paleontological sites and thus the great potential for behavioral and environmental reconstructions during this important time period of human evolution and population dispersal. Dr. Schick and her colleagues have located within the Basin a new area which appears rich in archaeological sites. During a 2-month field season they will investigate the distribution, chronology and context of these sites. They will conduct systematic survey and test excavation to tie these occurrences in with sites previously investigated. The work will also integrate the sites into the larger geological and environmental setting and allow reconstruction of the subsistence strategies these early humans employed. It will also provide the basis for future larger scale excavation. Archaeologists know that the earliest hominids first appeared in Africa and only later spread to other parts of the world. While many African sites have been excavated to provide insight into hominid adaptation, very little is known about how these peoples spread to other continents and adapted the very different environmental conditions which confronted them. The research which Dr. Schick and her colleagues will conduct should help to remedy this. The information collected will be of interest to many archaeologists.