The Late Neolithic cultures of the Lower Yangzi River (ca. 5300–4000 BP) were characterized by intensive rice agriculture, technological innovation, emerging social complexity, and elaborate ritual traditions. Pottery vessels played central roles in food production, storage, and consumption, yet the function of certain specialized forms remains unclear. This study focuses on filters, a distinctive pottery vessel type of the Songze and Liangzhu periods, long hypothesized to be associated with alcohol processing. Using multi-proxy residue analysis (starch, phytoliths, fungi, and microfibers) on filters and comparative cooking, storage, and serving vessels (cauldrons, jars, and plates) from the Wayaoli site (ca. 5300–5000 BP) in Zhejiang Province, we demonstrate that filters were used in the production of rice-based fermented beverages. The results indicate the consumption of rice, foxnut, Job’s tears, and underground storage organs as starchy resources; the addition of Monascus molds as fermentation starters to produce red-colored alcohol; and the application of bast fiber textiles for filtration, enhancing both alcohol taste and clarity. The consistent presence of filters in burials highlights the social and ritual significance of alcohol, shedding new light on foodways, technological development, and ritual practices in occupations from Late Songze to Early Liangzhu periods.
Bone retouchers provide valuable insights into past technological behaviors, including the interaction between raw materials, the condition of the bone at the time of use, the types of lithic materials worked, and even the handedness of the toolmaker. However, it remains unclear whether some specimens may carry relevant information beyond technological considerations. The discovery of human bones used as retouchers led some to suggest it could indicate evidence for symbolic behavior among Neanderthals. Here, we develop a conceptual framework to evaluate the potential symbolic intent behind the use of human bones as unmodified tools and discriminate them from other utilitarian objects. We use this framework by comparing blank selection and tool use for Mousterian retouchers on human and other animal bones. Using retouchers from the Tourtoirac rock shelter (France) and Cavernes de Goyet (Belgium), we combine traditional qualitative use wear analysis with quantitative surface texture analysis via confocal microscopy. Our results highlight a limited number of significant differences observed in use of retouchers, thus suggesting a non-differentiated processing of Neanderthal remains used as tools in comparison with other faunal species. A critical review of European Middle Paleolithic evidence encourages further reflection on the social dimensions of material reuse and on the ways Neanderthals may have negotiated relationships between the living, the dead, and material culture.
Human responses to environmental stress during Marine Isotope Stage 2 (MIS 2) remain central to debates on Late Pleistocene adaptation. The Changbai Mountains of Northeast China preserve a dense record of Northern Microblade Industry (NMI) assemblages and abundant high-quality obsidian, making the region well suited for examining how climate and lithic raw material shaped technological organization. This study synthesizes 40 published NMI assemblages and combines attribute analysis, raw-material assessment, and inter-assemblage comparison. The results reveal clear temporal and spatial patterning. After the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), microblade sites became more numerous and geographically widespread, suggesting population expansion and broader land use under climatic amelioration. At Dadong, the 17 − 15 ka cal BP layer contains larger-sized debitage, fewer microblades, and a small set of woodworking tools and evidence for giant blade core reduction relative to the 28 − 24 ka cal BP layers. These modest differences are consistent with lower residential mobility and more diversified subsistence. Regional contrasts are more pronounced. In the obsidian-rich central mountains, Tougeshita and burin-type microblade cores predominate within a blade-microblade system, whereas in the northern area, where basalt, tuff, rhyolite, and chert were more common, Yubetsu and boat-shaped microblade cores were favored and debitage was of larger dimensions. The Changbai record therefore shows that the NMI was not a uniform entity; rather, changing climate and uneven raw-material landscapes produced divergent adaptive pathways within a shared technological tradition.
Research on Palaeolithic bone tools has increasingly emphasised methodological refinement and interdisciplinary approaches, yet systematic quantitative assessments of scholarly attention and bias remain limited. This study presents a quantitative synthesis of 137 publications aimed at analysing patterns in tool-type focus, geographic coverage, and methodological change in European Palaeolithic bone-tool research. Within the Middle Palaeolithic context, retouchers emerge as the continuously foregrounded discrete category, while other artefact categories, often characterised by subtler traces or more ambiguous manufacturing and use traces, remain marginal. Using descriptive statistics, Fisher’s exact tests, and logistic regression, we identify a pronounced and persistent attention bias: retouchers constitute a dominant focus and are more likely to be analysed with functional methods (use-wear, experimentation, 3D imaging). Geographically, research is heavily concentrated in Western Europe, with France and Italy accounting for nearly half of all studies, while Spain shows a distinct association with retoucher-focused work. Temporally, we document a measurable shift from typological description toward techno-functional and interdisciplinary analysis, a trend that is statistically significant but unevenly distributed across tool types and regions. These findings underscore how research priorities, validation strategies, and regional academic traditions shape the archaeological narrative of early bone technology. Over time, this imbalance may narrow reconstructions of Palaeolithic bone technology toward activities closely aligned with lithic production, inadvertently downplaying other domains of bone use such as hide processing, plant working, composite tool manufacture, or percussive tasks unrelated to stone-tool maintenance. The issue is therefore not simply one of bias, but of epistemic filtering: certain behaviours become more visible because they align with dominant validation strategies, while others remain under-represented. We argue that future studies should extend high-resolution functional analyses beyond retouchers, broaden geographic and chronological representation, and adopt more standardised reporting to advance a more balanced understanding of Palaeolithic bone-tool behaviours.
The Late Pleistocene in southern China is of considerable importance for understanding human evolution in the region, as it witnessed pivotal transformations in lithic technology and human behavior, alongside pronounced intra-regional technological diversity. However, due to limitations in the quantity of available material and the scope of previous research, a coherent framework for technological evolution and a systematic regional distribution of lithic technologies have not yet been firmly established. Consequently, reports on new archaeological finds retain significant scholarly value. In this context, the Late Paleolithic Xinlipoding site (25 − 9 ka) in the Bubing Basin in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region offers crucial insights into technological change in the area. The lithic assemblage at Xinlipoding is characterized predominantly by miniaturized stone tools, representing a notable shift away from the local cobble-tool tradition. Through integrated techno-typological, use-wear, and residue analyses, evidence has been identified for the use of hafted composite tools and ochre. These findings reflect clear behavioral and technological innovations during the late Late Pleistocene in South China. Moreover, we propose that the technological patterns observed at Xinlipoding likely originated from earlier Late Pleistocene sites within South China. By incorporating data from later sites in the Bubing Basin, we have constructed a preliminary framework tracing the evolution of lithic technology in the basin from the late Late Pleistocene to the early Holocene.
