Mode of débitage and technical cognition of hominids at the Guanyindong site

Exploring and interpreting the mode of cognition and behavioral patterns of prehistoric hunter-gatherers is always one of the main goals of current Paleolithic research. In the 1940s, French prehistorians proposed the technological method for studying lithic assemblages which opened a brand-new perspective on the prehistoric domain. In the 1960s, French ethnographer and anthropologist Andre Leroi-Gourhan proposed the concept “chaine operatoire” and established the theory of lithic technological study. After the 1980s, the concept “chaine operatoire” was substituted for two different but complementary concepts: techno-cognition and techno-economy, which contributed not only to revealing the technical knowledge and know-how applied during lithic production but also to interpreting the technical behavior of prehistoric hunter-gatherers from social and economic viewpoints. The lithic technological study of the Guanyindong site, presented in this paper, was carried out for the first time by applying lithic technological method developed by French prehistorians to the Chinese materials. Our analytical results demonstrated that the debitage system of Guanyindong is quite distinct from the concept Levallois largely used in Europe, Near-East and Africa. The differentiation between these two debitage modes may contribute to exploring and interpreting the relationship in Middle Paleolithic between China and Europe, Near-East and Africa.