The eastern Asian "Middle Palaeolithic" revisited: a view from Korea

• Autores: Chuntaek Seong, Christopher J. Bae
• Localización: Antiquity, ISSN 0003-598X, Vol. 90, Nº 353, 2016, págs. 1151-1165
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Is the Middle Palaeolithic an appropriate concept in eastern Asia? The issue has been debated for China in two recent papers in Antiquity (Yee 2012; Li 2014), which in turn responded to an earlier argument set out by Gao and Norton (2002). But does the Korean record offer a different perspective? Here, the authors argue that Korean archaeology, as with the Chinese record, provides no support for a distinct Middle Palaeolithic. Rather than seeking to validate an inappropriate chronological framework derived from European Palaeolithic research, emphasis should instead be placed on developing a regionally specific model of prehistory for eastern Asia. They conclude, akin to Gao and Norton (2002), that the East Asian Palaeolithic should be divided into two major cultural periods: Early and Late.