Gaojia town site

Gaojia town site

Gaojiazhen site is a national key cultural relic protection unit. It is located in the bottom gravel layer of the third terrace on the right bank of the Yangtze River in Fengdu County, Chongqing city. It is a site of the early or Middle Paleolithic age. The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences is in charge of the archaeological excavation.

The origin of history

In 1997, a total area of 650m2 was exposed. In area a, there are dense specimens, thick accumulation, large quantity of stone products, rich types and high quality. According to analysis, the age of the site is from the end of the Middle Pleistocene to the beginning of the late Pleistocene, which is the earliest Paleolithic site in the Three Gorges area

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Gaojia town site is located in Guihua neighborhood committee of Gaojia Town, Fengdu County, Chongqing city. It is located in the third terrace on the right bank of the Yangtze River. Its geographical coordinates are 107 ° 56 ′ 54 ″ E and 30 ° 00 ′ 16 ″ n. Cultural relics are distributed between 173 and 180 meters above sea level, covering an area of more than 10000 square meters

. It is a middle late Paleolithic site with a cultural layer about 5 meters thick.

Site excavation

The gaojiazhen site was discovered in March 1993 by the Three Gorges Cultural Relics team of Institute of Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences in Fengdu reservoir area. In May of the same year, it was confirmed by Professor Zhang Senshui, a member of the expert group of the State Administration of cultural relics and a famous Paleolithic archaeologist.

From October to December 1995, the Institute of paleovertebrae and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Shuanggu Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) and the Chongqing Municipal Museum of nature, with the assistance of the Fengdu County Cultural Management Institute, officially excavated the Paleolithic site in Gaojia town. Taking the site as the practice base, they held a training course on Paleolithic Archaeology in the Three Gorges area, and trained a number of business backbones of Paleolithic Archaeology in the Three Gorges area.

Main features

The excavation covers a total area of 64 square meters, covering 19 square meters (called area a). The cultural relics are buried in the gravel layer 6.7 meters below the surface, some of which have been cemented or conglomerated. Three horizontal excavation layers with a thickness of 30-50cm have been cleared, and more than 1500 pieces of earth and stone products have been produced, most of which are stone cores, and a few are stone tools for processing living materials, such as stone chips, choppers, scrapers, etc.

From February to April 1998, Shuanggu Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences excavated the site again, and unearthed a large number of stone products. Most of the stone products were found in the original strata, and some of them were exposed in the stratigraphic section

.

Great significance

Gaojiazhen site is a very important open-air site in the early Paleolithic age, which is very rare in South China due to its large distribution area. It is of great value to explore the development of Paleolithic culture in the Yangtze River Basin and even Southeast Asia.

Cultural relics protection

On September 7, 2000, it was approved and announced as the first batch of Chongqing key cultural relics protection units by Chongqing municipal government; on June 25, 2001, it was approved and announced as the fifth batch of national key cultural relics protection units by the State Council

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Address: Right Bank of Yangtze River, Guihua Village, Gaojia Town, Fengdu County

Longitude: 107.85402918304

Latitude: 30.008489549088

Tel: 023-63712218

Chinese PinYin : Gao Jia Zhen Yi Zhi