<< News >> China: Ancient sites open windows on the past
Submitted by Anonymous on Sunday, 14 April 2002 Page Views: 2001
DiscoveriesCountry: China Prehistoric floods have been recorded in Chinese legends, the Bibles and tales of almost every nation in the world. The Chinese respect Yu, an ancient hero, as their Noah in the great flood. But little evidence of this flood had been found in China, until archaeologists found two ancient skeletons in strange poses in Minhe County's Lajia Village, in Northwest China's Qinghai Province last year.The two skeletons were buried in a collapsed house, which was covered with a thick layer of silt deposits from the Yellow River. In the layer of deposits archaeologists found more than 20 skeletons, an altar, a square, pottery, and stone and jade utensils.
"This site was a prehistoric village. The villagers were killed in an earthquake and the ensuing flood of the Yellow River 4,000 years ago," said Ye Maolin, leader of the research team from the Archaeological Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS).
The Lajia site is among the 23 major archaeological finds made last year, from which the 10 Most Important Archaeological Finds of 2001 are to be named today by archaeologists and scholars of the China Archaeologists' Society.
The archaeologists and scholars, who are browsing through vast numbers of artifacts, will have a hard time making their decisions, as the 23 candidate finds cover all historical eras, from the Old Stone Age to the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644).
Two of the finds date back to the Old Stone Age more than 10,000 years ago - the Jinsitai historical site in Dongwu Banner in North China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, and the Shizitan site in Linfen, in North China's Shanxi Province.
The latter is the largest and one of the most important finds that, offering clues to prehistoric settlement in China between 30,000 BC and 10,000 BC. It represents life in the central plains, which are comprised of the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, according to Jia Lanpo, a late CASS academician (1908-2001).
More: China Daily
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