陕西洛南龙牙洞遗址的特征和环境

要本文第一作者曾在陕西洛南龙牙南洞中获得洛南直立人的上臼齿及少量哺乳类化石。近年作者等又在龙牙北洞中采集到大量石制品及哺乳动物化石。龙牙洞是黄河流域最南的一个旧石器遗址。由30多种哺乳类化石组成的龙牙洞动物群是一个兼具古北界和东洋界动物的过渡型动物群,可与蓝田公王岭动物群对比,时代为早更新世晚期,是温暖、湿润的森林、草原、多水体环境条件下的动物组合。石制品非常丰富,属华北旧石器文化系统,但又可见南方文化的影响。龙牙北洞遗址很可能是洛南直立人制作石器的场地。

THE FEATURES AND ENVIRONMENT OF THE LONGYA CAVE SITE IN LUONAN, SHAANXI, CHINA

Longya Cave is located in Luonan County, Shaanxi Province, China. itsgeographic coordinate is 34°8' N and 110°10' E. It is composed of two caves at thesame level and a 30m distance. Depending on a human molar and a few mammalianfossils, Xue1] determined that the age of the cave depositS is the early MiddlePleistocene (or little earner).From the cave deposits of about 1.3m thick, over 30 species of fossil mammalsand birds are excoated. The mammalian fossils mainly are isolated teeth, including 9orders, 25 families, 35 genera and 36 species. Among them, Sciurotamias of. teilhardi,Belomys parapearsoni, Niviventer of. preconfucianus, Allophaiomys pliocaenius, Ursusof. etruscus, and Equus sanmeniensis, are characteristic and common species in theEarly Pleistocene; Callosciurus of. erythraeus, Hyaena sinensis, and Cervus grayiappeared in the late Early Pleistocene and became extinct in the end of the MiddlePleistocene, only one (or two) is relict species of the Neogene; and nearly no speciesappeared in the Middle Pleistocene even more the Late Pleistocene. In the LongyaCave fauna, 25.7% of the assemblage lived in the Palearctic, and 31.4% in theOriental. It was a transitional fauna betWeen the south and north of China in theQuaternary as the Gongwangling fauna from Lantian. According to the ecologicalfeatures of the Longya Cave fauna, Sciurotamias, Rhizomys, Niviventer, Tamiops,Callosciurus, mastodonts, Stegodon, Ailuropoda, and Ursus are forest species; Hystrix,Aeretes, Martes, and Cervus are shrub species, Eospalax,Cricetinae, Ochotona, Equus,and Bubalus are grassland species; as well as Rhinoceros, Bubalus,Rusa, andHydopotes are riparian species. It indicates that the environment of the Longya Cavefauna lived in a warm and humid with the dense forest, shrub and grassland.Over 2 000 Pieces of stone artifacts were found from the North Cave of Longya.They were made of mainly quartzose sandstone, metamorphic quartzite and vein quartz.Among the stone artifacts, there are abundant flake ones with the common features ofthe Paleolithic cultUre in northern China. However, the chopping tools from this caveare large pebble ones, which is similar to the Paleolithic characteristics from theLiangshan Site on the upper reaches of Hanjiang River. Because the Longya CaveSite is located in a transitional district of south and north China, stone artifacts isalso influenced by the south and north cultures.To sum up, Longya Cave is a Paleolithic site with abundant remains in QinlingMountain area. Several conclusions can be obtained as follows.(1) Longya Cave is the most south human site in the Huanghe River valley.Because the special situation of this district not only the Longya Cave faunaaccompanying the Luonan Homo erectus has an obvious transitional characteristic, butthe cultural remains from this site are also influenced by the south culture of China.(2) The Longya Cave fauna has many features which are similar to that of theGongwangling fauna from Lantian, Shaanxi. It is possible that their age is similar, i. e.the late Early Pleistocene.(3) The faunal analysis indicates that this district (even eastern Qinling Mountain)had a warm and humid climate with the forest shrub and grassland during that time.(4) Because Qinling Mountain rapidly uplifted and the climate suddenly cooled,the mammalian migration towards the north was blocked and affected. On the otherhand, some south mammals, which had come to the north slope of Qinling Mountain,could neither return their old haunt nor adapt violently drying and cooling climate,which killed them. ms phenomenon is almost same with that in the Gongwanglingfauna from Lantian.(5) According to the shape and direction of the tWo caves of Longya, the southone seems to be suitable for the stable residence of the Luonan Homo erectus. Onthe contrary, the north one was a stone artifact workshop, because it was easilysubmerged by deluge. The main reason that the Luonan Homo erectus abandonedNorth Cave of Longya was so.