Introduction

Guangxi Province in Southern China has produced a great quantity of important and unique prehistoric human remains. For example, the Liujiang materials are well-known Late-Pleistocene human fossils, and subsequent early to middle Holocene sites, such as Dalongtan, Zengpiyan, and Dingsishan, exhibit transition stages between hunter-gatherer subsistence to agricultural development. This research project focused on two shell-midden sites in southwestern Guangxi that were settled by early hunter-gatherers, Huiyaotian and Liyupo, which date to approximately 9,000 to 7,000 years BP and are contemporary with the early rice-farming societies in the middle and lower Yangtze River Valley. The site of Huiyaotian is located in the Qingxiu District in the eastern suburban area of the City of Nanning on a terrace along the Yongjiang River. Liyupo is located in Longan County around 80 km northwest of Nanning. Huiyaotian is notable for its inhumation burials, which are customarily in a flexed positioned style (fourlimbs tightly flexed at the joints) but also are found with a squatting style. The burial practice of Liyupo is also unique, in that people in a flexed position were covered frequently with large stones.