Is the Dingcun lithic assembly a “chopper-chopping tool industry”, or “Late Acheulian”?

The famous Palaeolithic site of Dingcun (Ting-ts'un) in North China is located on the third terrace of the Fenhe River, which is one of the main tributaries of the Yellow River. After it was discovered, a series of localities with similar stratigraphic profiles was excavated in 1954. Since then, the artifacts from Dingcun have been classified as a chopper-chopping tool industry assigned to the Late Pleistocene. The authors re-examined the lithic assemblage and carried out an additional field survey at these localities. The local geomorphologic background and especially the Chinese loess-paleosol sequence re-define the chronology of the site. Uranium-series dates on mammal teeth are 160 ka–210 ka. Hence, the site is re-assigned to the late Middle Pleistocene. The Dingcun lithic assemblage is also re-classified as Late Acheulian, characterized by classic Acheulian tools such as handaxes, cleavers, and picks, with the addition of some light-duty tools, including scrapers, notches, borers and denticulates. This paper aims to present a new interpretation of the chronology and the cultural characteristics of the Dingcun site.