This book is a research result of branch topic belonged to Scientific Research Programs at Ministry level on “Research and Evaluation of the historical and cultural values of the Paleolithic archaeology in Northern Vietnam since 1998” with author as the topic leader.
Book’s contents are presented in 5 chapters as followed:
Chapter 1: Overview of the Paleolithic Archaeology in Northern Vietnam. The exploration and researches on archeological monuments in the Paleolithic period in Northern Vietnam. To determine the map of distributing monuments related toancient relic, palaeobiologyin Vietnam; to provide researchers and historical and cultural teachers in Vietnam the objective, completed and latest information.
Chapter 2: Character, chronology of ancient relic and palaeobiology in Paleolithic era in Northern Vietnam. This chapter showed the results of investigations, explorations and excavations; and characters, chronology of ancient relic and palaeobiology. It also has the introduction of ancient relic as the results of explorations and researches in some places as Lang Trang cave (Thanh Hoa), Ma Uoi cave (Hoa Binh), Nham Duong cave (Hai Duong), Da Den cave (Tuyen Quang)… They are first steps to clarify the characters of how these ancient relic were distributed, their chronology and the progress of forming modern human in Northern Vietnam.
Chapter 3: Characters, chronology of cultural relic in the Paleolithic era in Northern Vietnam. This chapter presented results of excavations and researches on some particular cultural relics in Paleolithic era belonged to system of big rivers in Northern Vietnam. They are 12 relics in upstream of Lo River and Gam River; 48 relics in upstream of Da River and some other relic in upstream of Ma River.Based on the new documents, authors had pointed out some characters of relic distribution, types of relics, chronology and developed stages of Paleolithic culture in Northern Vietnam.
Chapter 4: Outlining physiognomy of culture in Paleolithic era in Northern Vietnam– authors outlined the cultural picture in Paleolithic era in Northern Vietnam from previous half millions years until previous one thousand years. This part discussed about the changes of environment and climate of the Paleolithic era in detail. It also described about the formation of human and owners of archeological culture as well as the method of hunting and social structure of community in that era.
Chapter 5: Historic value of Paleolithic era in Northern Vietnam – to do research on values of relic and archeological relics in paleolithic era in the progress of cultural development of Vietnam prehistory, and in the relations with other Paleolithic cultures at Southern China and South East Asian countries; to discuss some theoretical issues related to human knowledge about the development pathway of Vietnam prehistory such as: cultural traditions and reformation, the continuity and discontinuity, the imbalanced growth and contents of transition period from old paleolithic to new era in Northern Vietnam; also, to suggest solutions to reserve, promote and research on prehistory of Northern Vietnam in future.
Author has clarified the overall value of paleolithic era in Northern Vietnam and defined its characters, nature, chronology, and developing stages. As a result, they can outline physiognomy of culture and history in Paleolithic era in Northern Vietnamquite completed. Book also described issues of environment, climate, and owners of cultures and method of hunting together with social structure of community on paleolithic era in Northern Vietnam. The book has systematizedall documents about excavating ancient relics since 1998 and provided researchers and cultural as well as historic teachers the objective, completed and updated information.
We hope this book is useful for all those who are interested in doing research on the longest history of Vietnam. Pleasure to introduce to readers./.
Nguyen Thu Ha
