Chuandong Paleolithic site

Chuandong ancient human site

synonym

Chuandong Paleolithic site generally refers to Chuandong Paleolithic site

Chuandong ancient human site is located in the suburb of Puding County, 26 kilometers north of Anshun, Guizhou Province. It is a relic of ancient human life 16000 years ago and a late Paleolithic site. Two complete human skulls, 18000 mammalian bones, more than 500 single teeth and 13 genera or species of animal fossils were excavated from the site. More than 20000 pieces of stone artifacts and more than 1000 pieces of bone ware were unearthed, most of which were bone cones, bone shovels, bone needles and bone sticks. In addition, many fire relics were found. The discovery of two skulls at Chuandong site is unprecedented in China. The number of bone artifacts unearthed is more than 30 times of the total number found in the whole country. In one fell swoop, the title of poor bone artifacts in Paleolithic culture in China was removed, becoming the first in China and rare in the world. Chuandong site has important archaeological research value and high academic status in the world. It is praised as "the lamp of Asian Civilization" by experts of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and has been built as "Chuandong ancient human site museum".

geographical position

The Puding Chuandong site is located on an isolated mountain 5 km west of Puding County, Guizhou Province.

Historical evolution

Chuandong site in Puding is a late Paleolithic site.

In May 1979, a large number of stone tools and bone artifacts were obtained.

In May 1981, the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Guizhou Provincial Museum jointly excavated more than 2000 pieces of stone tools, bone implements, animal fossils and human fossils, providing rich material materials for the study of the primitive society in Southwest China.

So far, 50 Paleolithic sites have been found in the early, middle and late periods, and more than 20 sites have been officially excavated, mainly including guanyindong site in western Guizhou, tongziyanhuidong site, Shuicheng xiaohuidong site, maomaodong site in Xingyi, Chuandong site in Puding and liuzhitaohua cave site. Among the excavated sites, not only stone tools, bone implements and mammal fossils were unearthed, but also a number of human teeth, jaws, femurs, skulls and other fossils, which were named "Tongzi ape man", "Shuicheng man", "Xingyi man" and "chuandongman". From 1982 to 1992, archaeologists found the Dadong Paleolithic cultural site in Panxian County of Tongzi, which is a new ancient human site in southern China and is listed as the top ten archaeological achievements in 1993. The second is archaeology from Shang and Zhou Dynasties to Qin and Han Dynasties. The main excavated tombs are tonggushan site in Puding, Hezhang Keke tombs, Ninggu tombs in Anshun, wantun tombs in Xingyi, Jiaole tombs in Xingyi and Eastern Han Tombs in Renhuai. The copper smelting crucibles and a number of stone models unearthed from the tonggushan site in Puding provide the material basis for the study of the development history of Guizhou smelting and casting from the Warring States period to the Qin and Han Dynasties. In addition, many ethnic tombs with different burial methods have been found in Guizhou.

The Chuandong ancient human site was excavated twice by the national archaeological team. Two complete human skulls, 18000 mammal bones, more than 500 single teeth and 13 animal fossils were unearthed. More than 20000 stone artifacts and more than 1000 bone artifacts were unearthed, most of which were bone cones, bone shovels, bone needles and bone sticks. In addition, many fire relics were found. The discovery of two skulls at Chuandong ancient human site is unprecedented in China. The number of bone artifacts unearthed is more than 30 times of the total number found in the whole country. In one fell swoop, the title of bone poor artifacts in Paleolithic culture in China has been removed, becoming the first in China and rare in the world. Chuandong ancient human site has extremely important archaeological research value, which is praised as "the lamp of Asian Civilization" by experts of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Now, Chuandong ancient human site museum is proposed. In January 1988, with the approval of the State Council, it was announced as a national key cultural relics protection unit.

Cultural relic value

After the discovery of Changyang human fossils in the 1950s in the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River, eight sites of ancient human fossils, including Jianshi, Wushan and Fengjie, have been successively discovered, which makes the Three Gorges area one of the most densely distributed areas of human fossils in the world. However, due to the poor integrity of human fossils in the Three Gorges area (no more complete skull fossils have been unearthed before), the overall research level of human fossil sites is not deep enough, and the academic community has been looking forward to more complete human fossils and more academic research results.

In July 2008, teachers and students from the school of history, culture and Museum of Chongqing Normal University discovered a new fossil site in Chuandong, Yunwu Township, Fengjie County. One human incisor fossil, three stone artifacts and some other associated animal fossils were found in the first investigation and excavation. In August 2009, a complete human skull was found in the trial excavation, and there were many stone products and other animal fossils. The unearthed human skulls are in good shape and oval in shape. There is a thin layer of calcareous minerals cemented in the skull base and occipital bone. The healing degree of coronal suture, sagittal suture and entering suture on the skull is weak. The widest part of the skull is located in the middle and posterior part of the skull top. The frontal tubercle and nuchal tubercle of the skull are prominent, and the sagittal ridge is slightly convex. There is a bun like structure in the upper part of the occipital bone, and the upper nuchal line is not large The skull fossils unearthed from the hole have some primitive features, such as thick eyebrow arch, obvious crystal sagittal ridge, thick leopard mastoid process, And the skull top is relatively flat. However, some features of the skull show more advanced facial features, such as thin skull wall, thin zygomatic arch, and the height of temporal bone and squama is close to that of modern people. The mosaic of primitive features and progressive features of the skull reflects that it has the characteristics of late Homo sapiens. In addition, some features of the skull are similar to those of other late Homo sapiens in China (for example, the position of the anterior fontanel on the top is the same as that of Liujiang and Ziyang people). In terms of gender characteristics, the frontal and parietal tubercles are more prominent, and the zygomatic arch is thin and straight, which indicates that the skull may be female. In the aspect of age identification, there are four complete buccal teeth on the skull, which are left ml, right PL, ML and M2. The left and right ml tooth tips of the skull were severely worn, and the tooth particles were connected into pieces; most of the right M2 tooth tips were worn away, and the tooth particles were exposed. Considering_ It is speculated that the age of this skull may be middle-aged and young. Other animal fossils associated with human skull fossils are fish, soft shelled turtle, bat, porcupine, red bellied squirrel, giant panda, Oriental Saber Toothed elephant, South China Giant tapir, Shuilu, Qingyang, Sumen antelope, etc. they belong to the southern China Giant Panda Saber Toothed elephant fauna. Their geological age may be the late Pleistocene. According to the observation of the stone artifacts unearthed from the Chuandong site, the stone tools of the site are mainly sharp edged tools and scrapers, and the shapes of the tools are mainly medium and small. The processing of utensils is mainly based on the use of stone hammer for multi direction and forward processing. The style of stone culture reflects the characteristics of gravel stone culture in southern China, but it also shows a strong cultural exchange with northern China.

The discovery of Homo sapiens skulls and related cultural relics in the late Chuandong period in Chongqing is of great significance to the study of ancient Chinese. In the study of Paleoanthropology, the evolutionary relationship between modern humans and fossil humans, the migration of people from different regions and gene exchange are important topics. Among the late Homo sapiens discovered in China, there are skulls of Liujiang, shandingdong and Ziyang people, but compared with the fact that the number of human beings increased sharply, the distribution area expanded, and the communication among people increased in this period, it is not enough to rely on limited fossils for research. The basic characteristics of Chuandong fossil skull in Chongqing show that it has the characteristics of continuous evolution of ancient Chinese. For example, the skull and most of the Homo sapiens in China have rectangular orbit, blunt outer and lower edge of orbit, and lower upper part (above the eyebrow bone). But at the same time, there are some phenomena similar to those of the same period in Europe. Some phenomena suggest that there is gene exchange between the skull fossil and the late European Homo sapiens (for example, there is no Inca bone, there is a bun like structure on the occipital bone, etc.). The skull fossils of T. punctatus even reflect the gene exchange with African fossil humans: the widest part of human skull found in China is in the middle of the skull top, while the feature of T. punctatus is the same as that of the same period fossils found in Africa, which is in the back of the middle. Through comprehensive investigation, we can see that the complex inlay phenomenon of human skull with holes is the result of the extensive spread and gene exchange of Homo sapiens in the late Pleistocene. This phenomenon is consistent with the viewpoint of "continuous evolution with hybridization" put forward by Chinese paleoanthropologists. The gene exchange between Chinese and western ancient humans has appeared in the Middle Pleistocene. In the late Pleistocene, due to the progress of human production capacity and the popularity of controlled use of fire, human beings have spread to most of the land on the earth's surface, and there are their own biological genes and cultural exchanges between remote lands. The Lantian, Dali and MABA people previously discovered in China all have the characteristics of some European human fossils to some extent. However, due to the limitation of human fossils and cultural relics, although we have found a little evidence of gene exchange between Chinese and western ancient humans from Chinese human fossils, there is no obvious fusion of Chinese and Western cultures in China's Paleolithic culture. So far, China has not made any progress

Chinese PinYin : Chuan Dong Jiu Shi Qi Yi Zhi