Excavations at Panxian Dadong

盘县大东发掘

• 批准号: 9727688
• 负责人: Lynne Schepartz
• 金额: $ 9.1万
• 依托单位: University of Cincinnati Main Campus
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1997
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1997-12-15 至 1999-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=9727688&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Excavations; Panxian; Dadong

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

在美国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团队将在位于中国南方贵州省的盘县大东遗址进行为期一个季度的考古发掘。这个大洞穴是一系列三个堆叠在230米高的山丘中的中间。它朝东的入口宽55米，高50米，主厅平均宽35米，长220米。中美科学家联合小组的初步工作揭示了分层的考古沉积物，其中包含保存完好的动物遗骸和石器。还发现了一颗原始人类的牙齿碎片。为铀系测年收集的一系列大型样本表明，最上面2-3米的矿床形成于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。 关于中国北方旧石器时代中、晚期的情况，人们所知甚少，研究人员希望进行一次长期的、多季节的发掘，以重建地质、考古和环境序列，并将其置于绝对的年代背景中。在1998年实地作业季节，他们将扩大目前挖掘的深度，并挖掘更多的战壕。这将有助于最大限度地扩大暴露矿床的面积。它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。已经确定了几个白垩纪地层，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。将收集和分析岩石和动物遗骸。 虽然中国已经发现了重要的原始人类化石和大量的考古组合，但大多数都没有确定年代。因此，很难确定这片广阔的地区在人类文化和生物发展的广泛范围内所发挥的作用，也不清楚目前对非洲作为一个关键地区的关注是否仅仅是因为在那里进行了更多的考古工作。该项目应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，其中包括其他遗址。它将促进两位有前途的年轻考古学家的职业生涯，并加强中美之间的科学合作