Evidence of fire use of late Pleistocene humans from the Huanglong Cave, Hubei Province, China

doi:10.1007/s11434-008-0469-0

	Evidence of fire use of late Pleistocene humans from the Huanglong Cave, Hubei Province, China
	Liu Wu 1; Wu XianZhu 2,3; Li YiYin 4; Deng ChengLong 5; Wu XiuJie 1; Pei ShuWen 1
刊名	CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN
	2009
卷号	54 期号:2 页码:256-264
关键词	fire use Human behavior Late Pleistocene Huanglong Cave Yunxi Hubei
ISSN号	1001-6538
DOI	10.1007/s11434-008-0469-0
文献子类	Article
英文摘要	Since 2004, three excavations have been carried out at a late Pleistocene human fossil site of Huanglong Cave in Yunxi County, Hubei Province of China, which unearthed seven human teeth, dozens of stone tools, mammal fossils and other evidence indicating human activities. During the third excavation in 2006, in the same layer as the human teeth, we found some patches of black materials embedded in the deposit. We doubted that this black deposit layer is the remains of burning or even human use of fire at the cave. To further explore the possibility of human fire use at the Huanglong Cave, we examined samples directly taken from the black deposit layer and compared them with samples taken from several places in the cave using three methods: micromorphology, element content determination and deposit temperature analysis. Our results indicate that the contents of carbon element in the black deposit reach 64.59%-73-29%. In contrast, contents of carbon element of the comparative samples from other parts in the cave are only 5.82%-9.49%. The micromorphology analysis of the black deposit samples reveals a plant structure like axial parenchyma, fibrocyte, uniseriate ray and vessel. High-temperature magnetic susceptibility measurements suggest that the stratum possibly underwent a high temperature in the nature. Based on these lab analyses, we are sure that the black layer in the Huanglong Cave is the remains of fire and combustion did occur in the cave 100000 years ago. Taking other evidence of human activities found in the Huanglong Cave into consideration, we believe that the evidence of fire from the Huanglong Cave was caused by the human activities of controlled use of fire.
WOS关键词	ISRAEL ; SITE ; SUSCEPTIBILITY ; ARCHAEOLOGY ; INDICATOR ; BRONZE ; AGE
WOS研究方向	Science & Technology - Other Topics
语种	英语
出版者	SCIENCE PRESS
WOS记录号	WOS:000263128500012
内容类型	期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.iggcas.ac.cn/handle/132A11/71238]
专题	中国科学院地质与地球物理研究所
通讯作者	Liu Wu
作者单位	1.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Vertebrate Paleontol & Paleoanthropol, Beijing 100044, Peoples R China 2.Inst Archaeol & Cultural Rel Hubei Prov, Wuhan 430077, Peoples R China 3.Chongqing Normal Univ, Lab Sci Archeol, Chongqing 400047, Peoples R China 4.Peking Univ, Lab Earth Surface Proc, Dept Geog, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China 5.Chinese Acad Sci, Inst Geol & Geophys, State Key Lab Lithospher Evolut, Beijing 100029, Peoples R China
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Liu Wu,Wu XianZhu,Li YiYin,et al. Evidence of fire use of late Pleistocene humans from the Huanglong Cave, Hubei Province, China[J]. CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN,2009,54(2):256-264.
APA	Liu Wu,Wu XianZhu,Li YiYin,Deng ChengLong,Wu XiuJie,&Pei ShuWen.(2009).Evidence of fire use of late Pleistocene humans from the Huanglong Cave, Hubei Province, China.CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN,54(2),256-264.
MLA	Liu Wu,et al."Evidence of fire use of late Pleistocene humans from the Huanglong Cave, Hubei Province, China".CHINESE SCIENCE BULLETIN 54.2(2009):256-264.