Excavations at Panxian Dadong

在国家科学基金会的支持下，Lynne Schepartz博士和Sari Miller-Antonio博士以及一个国际合作者团队将在位于贵州省中国南部的盘县大洞遗址进行为期一季的考古发掘。这个巨大的洞穴是在230米高的山上堆积的三个洞穴中的中间一个。其东向入口宽55米，高50米，主厅平均宽35米，长220米。一个中美联合科学家团队的初步工作发现了分层的考古沉积物，其中既有保存完好的动物遗骸，也有石器。还发现了一颗残缺不全的原始人牙齿。为铀系列测年收集的大量样品表明，最上层的2-3米矿床形成于20万至13万年前，在此基础上，大部分矿床的年龄可能超过25万年。对中国北部旧石器时代晚期和中期的情况知之甚少，研究人员希望进行长期的多季节发掘，以重建地质、考古和环境序列，并将其置于绝对年代学的背景下。在1998年野外季节，他们将扩大目前挖掘的深度，并开辟更多的战壕单元。这将有助于最大限度地扩大暴露的矿藏面积。他们将取代测量土壤辐射的剂量计，并为一套测年技术收集样本。已经找到了几个钙华岩层，但它们的地层背景尚不清楚，地质学家将努力解决这个问题。岩屑和动物遗骸将被收集和分析。虽然中国发现了重要的原始人化石和大量的考古组合，但大多数年代都很糟糕。因此，很难确定这一广大地区在人类文化和生物发展中发挥的广泛作用，也不清楚目前把非洲作为一个关键地区的重点是否仅仅是因为在那里进行了更多的考古工作。这个项目应该有助于纠正这种情况。它将提供一个重要的平衡，产生许多考古学家感兴趣的数据，并建立一个区域框架，其中可能包括其他遗址。这将进一步促进两位有前途的年轻考古学家的职业生涯，并加强中国与美国之间的科学合作

With National Science Foundation support, Drs. Lynne Schepartz and Sari Miller-Antonio and an international team of collaborators will conduct one season of archaeological excavation at the site of Panxian Dadong, located in Guizhou Province, Southern China. This large cavern is the middle in a series of three stacked within a 230 meter high hill. Its eastward facing entrance is 55 meters wide and 50 meters high and the main chamber averages 35 meters wide by 220 meters in length. Preliminary work by a joint Chinese US team of scientists has revealed stratified archaeological deposits which contain both well preserved faunal remains and stone tools. One fragmentary hominid tooth has also been recovered. A large series of samples collected for Uranium series dating suggests that the uppermost 2-3 meters of the deposits formed between 200,000 and 130,000 years ago and that on this basis it is likely that the bulk of the deposits may be older that 250,000 years. Very little is known about the Upper and Middle Paleolithic periods in Northern China and the investigators wish to conduct a long term multi-season excavation to reconstruct the geological, archaeological and environmental sequence and to place these into an absolute chronological context. During the 1998 field season they will expand the depth of the current excavation and also open additional trench units. This will serve to maximize the area of exposed deposits. They will replace dosimeters which measure soil radiation and collect samples for a suite of dating techniques. Several travertine layers have been located but their stratigraphic context is not clear and geologists will work to resolve this issue. Lithics and faunal remains will be collected and analyzed. While China has yielded important hominid fossils and numerous archaeological assemblages, most are poorly dated. Because of this it is difficult to determine the role this vast area played in the broad sweep of human cultural and biological development and it is unclear whether the current focus on Africa as a crucial area results merely from the fact that much more archaeological work has been conducted there. This project should help to remedy this situation. It will provide an important counterbalance, yield data of interest to many archaeologists, and establish a regional framework within which other sites may be encompassed. It will further the careers of two promising young archaeologists and enhance scientific collaboration between China and the US