The Chinese Palaeolithic has traditionally been divided into three distinct cultural periods: Lower, Middle, and Upper. Analysis of four stone tool criteria (raw material procurement, core reduction, retouch, and typology) to determine if a distinct Middle Palaeolithic stage existed in China suggests that very little change occurred in lithic technology between the Lower and Middle Palaeolithic. Accordingly, a two-stage progression is proposed: Early and Late Palaeolithic. The transition between these two cultural periods occurred with the development of more refined stone tool making techniques (e.g. introduction of blade and microblade technology) and the presence of other archaeological indicators of more modern human behaviour (e.g. presence of art and/or symbolism) (c. 30,000 years ago).

Behavioral modernity is considered one of the defining characteristics separating modern humans from earlier hominin lineages. Over the course of the past two decades, the nature and origins of modern human behavior have been among the most debated topics in paleoanthropology. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] There are currently two primary competing hypotheses regarding how and when modern human behavior arose. The first one, which we shall term the saltational model, argues that between 50-40 kya modern human behavior appeared suddenly and as a ''package''; that is, the entire range of traits appeared more or less simultaneously. The proposed reason most often cited for this sudden change in behavior is a genetic mutation, possibly related to communication, 7 that occurred around 50 kya. The second major hypothesis, which we shall term the gradualistic model, argues that modern human behavior arose slowly and sporadically over the course of the past 150,000 years and may be related to increasing population pressure.2 In general, many European scholars subscribe to the saltational model, while many Africanists seem to prefer the gradualistic model. As McBrearty and Brooks 2 noted, the disagreement may be related to different developmental histories underlying the research traditions in Europe and Africa.

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