THE PALEOLITHIC ARCHAEOLOGY OFXINJIANG, MONGOLIA, AND NORTHERN TIBET.pdf

THE PALEOLITHIC ARCHAEOLOGY OF XINJIANG, MONGOLIA, AND NORTHERN TIBET 2004 FIELD REPORT* A Preliminary Description of Activities of the Joint Mongolian-Russian-American Archaeological Expedition (JMRAAE) and the Tibet Paleolithic Project (TPP) in 2004 by John W. Olsen, Ph.D. Professor Head Department of Anthropology The University of Arizona P.O. Box 210030 Tucson, Arizona 85721-0030 USA Voice: 520/621-6298 Facsimile: 520/621-2088 E-mail: olsenj@ October 2004 *Not to be cited or quoted without the author’s permission 1 Abstract In 2004, our interdisciplinary approach to the investigation of high and arid Central Asia’s earliest prehistory yielded a range of archaeological, paleoecological, paleogeographic, and geological data that collectively describe a complex, changing pattern of prehistoric human occupation of northwest China, Mongolia, and Tibet. The Joint Mongolian-Russian-American Archaeological Expedition (JMRAAE; /~mongolia/) and the Tibet Paleolithic Project (TPP; /TibetGroupPage.html) carried out three principal activities during the 2004 field season in China, Mongolia, and Tibet: (1) reconnaissance and surface collection of Paleolithic localities in the northern Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, China; (2) test excavation of a deeply stratified Paleolithic site in Bulgan province, north-central Mongolia; and (3) reconnaissance and test excavation of late Pleistocene/early Holocene localities in southern Amdo (Qinghai) province, Tibet (China). Introduction From 27 May through 30 July 2004 the Joint Mongolian-Russian-American Archaeological Expedition (JMRAAE) and the Tibet Paleolithic Project (TPP) continued a program of field research initiated in Mongolia in 1995, in Tibet in 2000, and this year in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. The preliminary results of the 1995—1998 Mongolia expeditions have been published as trilingual monographs (Derevianko, Ols