Wuya Mountain Site

Wuya Mountain Site

The Wuya Mountain Site is a protected cultural heritage site of Hunan Province.

The Wuya Mountain Paleolithic site is located in Gaoyan Village, Linnan Town, Li County, Hunan Province. The Paleolithic remains are buried in the red soil of the overlying strata on the second terrace of the left bank of the Daohe River, a tributary of the Li River, at a relative height of 25 meters. The geological age is the late Late Pleistocene, and the cultural period is the late Paleolithic.

Formal excavation began at the end of 1992. The stone tools found at the Wuya Mountain site were mainly made of siliceous rock, followed by sandstone, along with quartz, flint, and quartzite. The tool assemblage includes choppers, handaxe-like tools, large pointed tools, pointed tools, scrapers, and stone hammers. The stone tools can be divided into large and small types. Large tools consist of choppers, handaxe-like tools, large pointed tools, and stone hammers—types of cobble tools—but they are smaller than similar tools from the Jigongdang culture, less numerous, and account for less than 30% of the total. Small tools are primarily various types of scrapers and pointed tools, making up about 70%. The raw materials for small tools all come from siliceous rock cobbles. Flake tools dominate overwhelmingly. The manufacturing technique is primarily hammer percussion, with more single-face than double-face flaking, and there is also evidence of alternate flaking. Small handaxe-like tools, large pointed tools, and long flake scrapers are distinctive tool types found at this site.

Other sites of a similar nature to the Wuya Mountain site include Zhujia Mountain, Chenjiashanzui, Jinya, Hushan, and Huashan. The significance of the Wuya Mountain site lies in its reflection of the broader trend toward miniaturization in stone tool industries, as well as the evolutionary combination of flake tool and cobble tool industries. Researchers therefore refer to it as the "Wuya Mountain Culture."

In March 2019, the Wuya Mountain Site was included in the tenth batch of Hunan Provincial-Level Protected Cultural Heritage Sites.

Gaoyan Village: Gaoyan Village…… More detailed information about Gaoyan Village++

Further Reading:

· Tenth Batch of Hunan Provincial-Level Protected Cultural Heritage Sites