Introduction

In the history of Chinese archaeology, the foreign scientists Emile Licent (1876-1952), Pierre Teihard de Charlin (1881-1955), Johanson Andersson (18741960), Davidson Black (1884-1934), and Henri E. Breuil (1877-1961) are indisputably regarded as the pioneers of Chinese Palaeolithic study. Their investigations in the Ordos area of the Upper Yellow River, excavations at the Shuidonggou site, and discovery of the sensational Sinanthoropus pekinensis fossils at the Zhoukoudian (also spelled as Cho-Kou-Tien), all in the 1920s, marked the beginning of Palaeolithic research in China. These early discoveries were published in Le Paleolitque de la China in 1928, the first book on Chinese Palaeolithic cultures.

Research prior to 1949 focused solely on the excavations of sites at Zhoukoudian, near Beijing. The international collaboration at Zhoukoudian trained the first generation of Chinese Palaeolithic archaeologists: Dr. Pei Wenzhong (also known as W. C. Pei, 1904-1982) and Jia Lanpo (also Chia Lan-po, 19082001). Today, their students, including Lu Zen’er, Zhang Senshui, Wei Qi, and Huang Weiwen, among others, are leading scholars active in the field. They are responsible for the discovery of hundreds of Palaeoli-tihc sites between the 1950s and 1980s (Figure 1). The findings from these discoveries are summarized in an edited volume Paleonanthropology and Paleolithic Archaeology in the People’s Republic of China published by Academic Press in 1985. The book became a major reference tool for western scholars and students studying Chinese Palaeolithic in the following decades.

By the end of the last century, Chinese Palaeolithic study entered a new era when a new generation of Chinese archaeologists, who received their training in the West, started evaluating old data, applied new techniques in field investigations, and offered alternative interpretations on human evolution in China. International collaborations, after a half-century long hiatus, once again played a vital role in the development of Chinese Palaeolithic framework. This article summarizes our current knowledge of Palaeolithic cultures based on the data sets accumulated over the last two decades.