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Rethinking Microblade Technology Research in Northeastern Asia

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Abstract

Microblade technology was widely adopted in northeastern Asia during the Late Upper Paleolithic, which was represented by various types of microcores in Siberia, Mongolia, northern China, the Korean Peninsula, and the Japanese Archipelago, as well as northwestern North America in eastern Beringia. Although some works have turned to technology-function-oriented research, most of the current studies follow a culture-historical paradigm, which has severely limited archaeological investigation on variation and change of hunter-gatherers’ adaptive strategies equipped with microblade technology. This paper aims to provide a new viewpoint to investigate the role of microblade technology in the development of human adaptations in northeastern Asia, by proposing a new concept: “microblade-based societies.” Assuming that paleoenvironmental changes stimulated cultural changes due to available food resources and that local environment conditioned cultural variation, the development of microblade-based societies can be divided into four phases (c.40–22 kya, 22–15 kya, 15–10 kya, 10–c.1 kya uncal. BP) in four regions (north continental, south continental, north insular, and south insular). Two waves of cultural change among microblade-based societies are also recognized in this paper, which needs a macroecological approach to do further explanation.

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Notes

  1. The full name of microcore is microblade core. The paper adopts “microcores” unless in the original citation.

  2. The third type includes 3 sub-types. The paper follows Bar-Yosef and Wang’s classification of microblade cores, with a total of 4 types.

  3. According to the microblade data I collected, the latest microblade assemblage in China is 4045 ± 30 uncal. BP at the Huiheshuiba (Hui River Dam) site in the Hulun Buir steppe (Liu et al., 2008; Yue et al., 2016).

  4. According to Terry et al. (2016), the calibrated age of the LGM is 26.5–21.7 kya BP. Different versions of calibration software can produce different calibrated ages. Thus, the paper will mainly use uncalibrated dates instead.

  5. It is a zoogeographical boundary between Hokkaido and Honshu in Japan. The Tsugaru Strait is known in biology as the “Blakiston Line,” to commemorate Thomas Wright Blakiston, an English explorer, and naturalist.

  6. Binford’s (2001: pp 387–388) original writing is shown below.

    “A similar distribution in figure 10.09, graph B, demonstrates the relationship between latitude and the number of weapons for ethnographic cases coded to reflect the primary source of food. Groups characterized by relatively few weapons dominate the graph below 40 degrees latitude and are primarily dependent upon terrestrial plants, in whose acquisition weapons would not be very useful. Above 40 degrees, there is a pronounced shift in the orientation of the graph, as rapid increases in the number of tools occur with increases in latitude.

    “In figure 10.10, a positive relationship is visible between latitude and the number of tended facilities (FACNO) up to a threshold at approximately 42.6 degrees, after which the pattern reverses and the number of tended facilities decreases.

    “Relating this pattern to the distribution in figure 10.09, it is clear that, although the number of tended facilities goes down at latitudes of approximately 42.6 degrees, the number of weapons increases dramatically. It should be emphasized that the 42.6-degree threshold corresponds to the terrestrial plant threshold – noted earlier in proposition 8.06 – at 12.75 degrees ET, at which point accessible plant resources become less available. As subsistence shifts to the pursuit of large game and sea mammals-supplemented by fish-weapons and mobility become more important.”

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Acknowledgements

Drs. Lawrence Straus, Bruce Huckell, Robert Hitchcock (University of New Mexico), Amber Johnson (Truman State University), and Pei-Lin Yu (Boise State University), as my dissertation committee members, helped me organize my research and also edited my original writing. Dr. Quan Qiankun at the School of Archaeology in Jilin University answered several questions related to the Russian Paleolithic. The two anonymous reviewers are also gratefully acknowledged for their constructive comments and suggestions.

Funding

The research was supported by the Binford Fellowship, several TAships, CSC, Moore Research Grant, and the CCKF when I was in the PhD program at the UNM. This project is also supported by the Subject Fundamental Development Project of Fudan University. This research is supported by the general project of the Shanghai Planning Office of Philosophy and Social Science (No. 2020BLS002).

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  1. Department of Cultural Heritage and Museology, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Meng Zhang

  2. Institute of Archaeological Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Meng Zhang

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Zhang, M. Rethinking Microblade Technology Research in Northeastern Asia. J Paleo Arch 4, 17 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41982-021-00095-4

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