Le contexte géologique des industries lithiques à bifaces en Chine

Until 1950, a few handaxe yielding sites were known in China. Since then, several sites were discovered, as for example Dingcun, Lantian and Bose. However, only after the publication of the discovery of handaxes at Bose in 2000, the theory of Movius, who rejected the evidence of proper handaxes in China, was really questioned. This bad understanding of the prehistory in China, would be bound to a misunderstanding of the geological Quaternary context. This article aims at improving the situation by presenting the stratigraphy of handaxe-yielding sites according to their geographical and environmental context, highly contrasted between north and south.