Preliminary Study on the Cave Development and Environmental Background of Hominin Occupation at Bailong Cave, Yunxi County, Hubei Province
摘要
Bailong cave site is an important Middle Pleistocene paleoanthrological site in China. Since its discovery, the site was excavated for four times in the past 30 years. A large number of cultural remains including 7 Homo erectus teeth, more than 60 stone artifacts, 2 bone artifacts and 29 mammalian fossil species were excavated from the site. Paleomagnetic dating and faunal analysis show that the cave deposits were formed in the Middle Pleistocene. In order to interpret the possible environmental background, especially the impact on human activities at Bailong cave,a systematic analysis of the particle size, magnetic susceptibility, clay minerals, oxides, as well as mammalian fauna from sediments were carried out by the authors in this paper.