Up to now, there are 49 sites in Kangwon Region, where site were excavated.
The sites were found to be made in Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic. In particular, some site were discovered to be made in the transitional period from Upper Paleol...
Up to now, there are 49 sites in Kangwon Region, where site were excavated.
The sites were found to be made in Middle Paleolithic and Upper Paleolithic. In particular, some site were discovered to be made in the transitional period from Upper Paleolithic to Neolithic, starting to cause a debate over Mesolithic.
Mesolithic in Kwangwon Region is the period when paleolithic men adopted themselves to environmental changes, and made and used stone tools by using microblades cut off from microblade core.
In fact, the microblade culture is a stone culture representing upper paleolithic, and in the North East Asia including the Far East, the stone tool culture had been spread about 25,000 years ago.
The microblade culture appearing in Kangwon Region was found not only in Sadunji site created in Mesolithic, but in Hahwagyeri Jagunsolbat site, Yanggu Sangmuryongri site, Cheolwon Janheungri site, and Donghae Gigok site. Given a chronicle and a group of stone tool, the site feature the characteristics of transitional period to Neolithic. Accordingly, the simple facts that stones were made with the use of microblades, and that many small stone tools were used as a combination tool do not seem to reason that the stones were created in Mesolithic.
That is because the stone tools representing the mesolithic culture of West Europe are microliths with a geomtric shape, whereas microblade core can be an indication relic of North East Asia in the same period. Such a reasoning for the transitional period from Paleolithic to Neolithic is considered to be simply based on the European mesolithic concept without consideration of cultural continuation and succession.
For the reasons, the term of the end of upper paleolithic. That was in between paleolithic and neolithic is
considered to be more properly applied to Kangwon Region than the term of mesolithic is.
The site with the characteristics of the end of upper paleolithic, including Sangmuryongri site, Hahwagyeri Sadunji site, Hahwagyeri Jagunsolbat site, Janheungri site, and Donghae Gigok site, were studied relatively a lot.
But Cultural changes dynamically occurred in the end of upper paleolithic.
so that it is hard to understand the cultural characteristics simply based on the analysis of site.
Therefore, it is necessary to look into them in a wider perspective.
For the reason, this thesis was intended to analyze microblade core and microblades, which are the representative stone tool of the end of upper paleolithic, burin-type stone tools such as diagonal burin and multifaceted burin, and small stone tools including scraper and end-scraper, and other associated stone tool from the North East Asian perspective.
In addition, based on the analyzed stone tools, this researcher compared them with the stone tool found in the southern area of the Russian Far East, Japan and other neighboring areas of Korean, and investigated the characteristics of Kwangwon Region, which were made in the end of upper paleolithic.
The analysis of comparison between the Kangwon sites made in the end of upper paleolithic, and the sites found in North East Asian regions resulted in the following characteristics.
First, the type of microblade core in Kangwon Region was found to be equal to the type in North East Asia.
Regarding the sites excavated in Kangwon Region, there are the microblade core with 1-striking platform and 1-working face based on the double-peel principle, the microblade core with 1-striking platform and 2-working face, and the microblade with a prismatic core.
But such microblade cores were not many, and most of the excavated microblade cores have an indeterminate form.
Such a characteristic was similarly found in sites excavated in the basin of Amur river, the Maritime Region of Siberia, Japan and other regions of Korea.
Secondly, aside from the microblade core, burin-type stone tools including diagonal burin and multifaceted burin, end-scraper tools, and small stone tools which presents the characteristics of the North East Asian the end of upper paleolithic., were excavated a lot.
In particular, it was pointed that the burin of Sangmuryongri sites was associated with Araya-type burin and Hirosato-type core in Japan in terms of morphological characteristic.
But, the stone tools have strong regional characteristic so that they were discovered only in Korea and Japan.
For the reason, it is hard to determine the period of sites based on the types of stone tools.
In the North East Asian classification system, Araya-type burin and Hirosato-type core are classified as diagonal burin and indeterminate core, and the burin of Sangmuryongri sites is considered to be multifaceted diagonal burin, which was found in the basin of Amur river, the Maritime Region of Siberia, and Korean Wolpyeong sites, and Korean Wolseongdong sites in the similar period.
Thirdly, the use frequency of obsidian is high and the stone was produced in many areas.
Obsidian tools were found in Hawhagyeri Jagunsolbat, Jangheungri, and Gigok sites, let alone in Sangmuryongri, but were a few.
But its occupancy percentage of the entire stone tools is high in consideration of the small amount of obsidian tools.
That seems to resulted from the reason that the difficult environment of finding obsidian led to the continuous cut-off and use to maximize the use of the stone.
Although the analysis of obsidian, movement distance, and the obsidian excavated in Hawagyeri sites leads to the assumption that obsidian was produced in the neighboring areas and that it was possible to take obsidian from a far distant area through various exchanges, there might be limitations in terms of quality and quantity.
Therefore, there might be trials of actively using stones whose quality was similar to obsidian.
This indicates that people living in the region were aware of the quality of obsidian and had a sufficient technical capability, but that there were few stones which were used for the technology.
Although there has yet to be no clear evidence of the indication, it is considered that the possibility of doing various acts regarding obsidian is high.
As described earlier, in Kangwon Region in the end of upper paleolithic, the types of stone tools and the time can be slightly different depending on the regional environment and circumstances, but those in the Region also made the stone tools mostly found in North East Asia.
This means that the technical, morphological and cultural characteristics of the region are involved in, and closely related to North East Asian characteristics.
Therefore, to look into the characteristics of Kangwon Region more clearly, it is necessary to investigate it from the North East Asian perspective beyond the perspective of the Region itself.