Tongtiandong Explained

Tongtiandong should not be confused with Tongtianlong.

Tongtiandong
Map Type:	Continental Asia#China Xinjiang
Map Size:	300
Relief:	1
Region:	Xinjian China
Coordinates:	47.0061°N 85.9801°W
Built:	46,000–44,000 BP cal
Epochs:	Paleolithic China

Tongtiandong (Tōngtiāndòng) is an archaeological site in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region of China, just to the south of the Altai Mountains. The site had hunter-foraging human activity circa 40,000 BP (the Mousterian cultural layer was radiocarbon dated to approximately 46,000–44,000 BP, calibrated).^{[1] [2]}

Cave

Until the discovery of Tongtiandong, the typical Mousterian techno-complex had not been identified in China, but the whole reduction sequence of the Mousterian techno-complex has now been identified in Tongtiandong cave.^[3]

From Tongtiandong and other sites, a general distributional pattern of different techno-complexes between Mongolia-Siberia and northern China can be established, for the dates between 50,000 and 32,000 cal BP.

Terminology

• TMP: Terminal Middle Paleolithic (~50–38 ka BP)
• IUP: Initial Upper Paleolithic (~43-32ka BP)

Notes and References

1. Book: Betts . Alison . Vicziany . Marika . Jia . Peter Weiming . Castro . Angelo Andrea Di . The Cultures of Ancient Xinjiang, Western China: Crossroads of the Silk Roads . 19 December 2019 . Archaeopress Publishing Ltd . 978-1-78969-407-9 . 10 . en. ""Recent excavations at the cave site of Tongtiandong in the southern Altai have revealed evidence for human activity at around 40 k BP (Yu and He 2017), and one other stratified but undated preBronze Age context is known, from the site...".
2. 45,000-Year-Old Stone Tools Recovered in China - Archaeology Magazine . Archaeology . 2018 .
3. Zhao . Chao . Wang . Youping . Walden . John P. . Diachronic shifts in lithic technological transmission between the eastern Eurasian Steppe and northern China in the Late Pleistocene . PLOS ONE . 3 November 2022 . 17 . 11 . e0275162 . 10.1371/journal.pone.0275162 . 36327263 . en . 1932-6203. "The typical Mousterian techno-complex was long considered absent from China due to a lack of convincing evidence [59]. However, recent discoveries reveal unequivocal evidence of this techno-complex distributed sporadically across peripheral areas of Northwest and Northeast China. At Tongtiandong Cave in Northwest China, the whole reduction sequence of the Mousterian techno-complex has been identified. This sequence comprised Levallois flake cores, Levallois flakes, points, and denticulates". 9632798 . 2022PLoSO..1775162Z . free .