RADIOCARBON AGES OF SUYANGGAE PALEOLITHIC SITES IN DANYANG, KOREA

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe Suyanggae archeological complex is located in Aegok-li, Danyang County, Chungbuk Province, Korea (128°20'00"E, 365˚7'15"N, elevation 132 m). We investigated two Suyanggae Paleolithic localities (1 and 6). A total of 31 samples (18 localities) were analyzed for radiocarbon (14C) ages in three paleolithic cultural horizons of Suyanggae Locality 6 (SYG-6). The purpose of this paper is to report all dating results of SYG-6. It was found that ranges of 14C ages (BP) of cultural layers of SYG-6 are known to be 17,550 ± 80 ∼ 20,470 ± 70, 30,360 ± 350 ∼ 44,100 ± 1900, and 34,870 ± 540 ∼ 46,360 ± 510 BP for cultural layers 2, 3, and 4, respectively. We compared these age data with those of the previous study associated with Gunang Cave near Suyanggae Locality 1 (SYG-1). Based on the chronological information of the three archaeological sites, early humans lived in a rather cold environment from approximately 30,000 to 46,000 BP and disappeared between 30,000 ∼ 20,000 BP and then settled again in SYG-6 site during LGM period. This study demonstrates that archaeological study is important not only for understanding human occupations with their cultural development but also establishing climatic signals to which they have been adapted as a part of the human evolutional process.