Ground stone tool production: a forsaken craft during early urbanization in China

Zhai Shaodong (Associate Professor, Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences; HYI Visiting Scholar, 2019-20)

In China, ground stone tools emerged during the transition period from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic time. However, they did not take the place of knapped stone tools as the main production tools until the Yangshao Culture. This process coincided with the change from hunting and gathering to agriculture and sedentism. Therefore, ground stone tools greatly supported agricultural development and sedentism. If there were ground stone tools, there was ground stone tool production. Currently, there are not many clues about ground stone tool production during and before the Yangshao Culture in the Central Plains of China, but there are some related data from Taosi, Erlitou and Yin Ruins. These three sites also represented the early urbanization process in China. This talk will compare ground stone tool production at these three sites in order to see the status of ground stone tool production during early urbanization in the Central Plains of China