在淮河上游和黄淮之间,不仅有生活在距今约10万年的许昌灵井人,还有处于旧石器时代晚期和从旧石器时代向新石器时代过渡时期的新密市李家沟文化遗址和舞阳大岗遗址。三处旧石器时代晚期遗址都属于北方猎人细石器文化,是北方猎人族群在距今约1.8万年前后南迁而留下的文化遗存。大约在距今1.2万年猎人族群又陆续向北方回迁,淮河上游和黄河之间的细石器时代也随之结束。约在距今9000年之后,一支掌握较为先进的农业文化的先民来到中原地区,发展成为淮河上游地区著名的裴李岗——贾湖文化。从目前考古资料来看,这一地区的新旧石器之间尚存在约2000年的时间断层。
Between the Huang-Huai area and Huai River' s upstream, there were Lijiagou Cultural Sites in Xinmi county and Da- gangshan Cultural Sites in Wuyang county in the late paleolithic age in the transition from Neolithic age to the Paleolithic age, and Lingjing people lived in Xuchang city about 100 thousand years or so. Those sites belong to the relics of northern hunter ethnic Microli- thic Culture, which is dating back about 18 thousand years ago after leaving for the south. About 12 thousand years ago, Hunter ethnic groups moved back to the north, and the Microlithic Culture had come to an end in the upper reaches of the Huaihe River and the Yellow River. Dating back about 9,000 years, our ancestors who had more advanced farming culture came to the Central Plains, the upper reaches of the Huai River region became famous owing to Peiligang-Jiahu Culture. there are still about 2,000 years culture gap between the new-old Paleolithic ages in this region judging from the current archaeological material.