A Study On Notches Unearthed From The Youfang Site

Youfang site is located in the eastern part of Nihewan Basin,Yangyuan County,Hebei Province.It is considered to be the earliest microlithic site in Nihewan Basin so far.New dating reveals that it is in middle and upper paleolithic,and it is very important for the study of the cultural evolution and ecological adaptation model of the late pleistocene in northern China.In 1986,Cultural Relics Institute Hebei Province excavated Youfang site for the first time,obtaining more than 3,000 stone artifacts.From 2013 to 2016,Institute of Nihewan Archaeology(INA)in Hebei Normal University excavated Youfang site for the second time.Notch is a common stone tool in paleolithic age.The author found 40 notches when observing stone artifacts unearthed from the Youfang site in 1986 and in recent years.In this paper,a series of analysis is carried out on the definition and typology of notches by observing notches unearthed from of the Youfang site and related sites in the Nihewan basin.A notch is a tool for blowing or retouching a notch on either one side or an end of a flake,blade or fragment,and the ratio of blade width to depth is generally greater than 2.According to the retouching technique,they could be divided in two main types.Those whose notches were percussed or pressed for only one time would be Clactonian notches,and those whose notches were percussed for several times or been further retouched would be ordinary or complex notches.It can be divided into sheer-blade type and sharp-blade type according to the angle of notched cutting edge.According to the size of the blank,it can be divided into three types: large,medium and small.In addition,those whose blank are blades or microblades should be classified as a single type.Notches are different from concave side-scrapers.The retouch of a notch focuses on the notched part,deep and narrow,and the cutting edge is a short break of the edge.While the cutting edge of a concave side-scraper is a gentle arc.In order to objectively compare the techniques of the notches in Youfang site,experimental replications were carried out combined with sample observation.The experimental results show that the retouching technique of notches may include direct retouch,pressure method and pressing after direct retouch.In order to know the function of notches,we did using experiments.The processing material conclude bone and wood,while usingmethods conclude shaving,scraping and cutting a circle round.Experiments have shown that the possible uses of notches include shaving the bark,shaving bone and cutting the wood a circle round.Combined with the use-wear analysis of the unearthed specimen,it was speculated that the notches in the Youfang site were used to shave bark or bone.The Youfang culture layer which containing microlithic is in the late stage of MIS3,before the Last Glacial Maximum,the climate changed from warm and wet to cold and dry.Pollen analysis shows that the vegetation of Youfang cultural transition belongs to the type of grassland vegetation,and the climate is relatively cold and dry.The animal bone fossils in the site are all fauna adapted to grassland environment such as ostrich,zokor and antelope.Combined with the ancient environment change trend and animal and plant resources in Youfang site,it is known that in Youfang and Jijitan,which are upper paleolithic sites,ancient human produced notches in order to adapt to the new environment,emboding the means of production and lifestyle changes.