In the 50s of the last century, the discovery of the skull of the "Ziyang Man" about 30,000 years ago attracted attention, and now Paleolithic remains have been found again in Ziyang City, Sichuan Province. The reporter learned from the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology on the 14th that the Sichuan Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology found the remains of human activities more than 40,000 years ago when excavating the site of Ziyang Meixi River.
Image source of some stone products unearthed at the site of Ziyang Meixi River: Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Zheng Zhexuan, director of the Paleolithic Research Institute of the Sichuan Academy of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, said that in September 2021, the site collapsed due to flooding, and some animal fossils, stone products and other relics were washed out, and a well-preserved stratigraphic profile was found after on-site investigation. In January 2022, the Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and the cultural relics departments of Ziyang City and County jointly launched rescue excavations of the site, and phased results have been achieved.
Up to now, more than 1,000 stone tools and animal fossils of various types have been unearthed at the site of the Meixi River. Stone products include typical stone cores, stone chips, scrapers, pointed tools, etc., and animal fossils include cattle, rhinos, elephants, deer, etc. It is worth mentioning that bone tools, suspected wooden tools and a large number of plant remains have also been found at the site, which is very rare in Paleolithic sites.
Some animal fossils unearthed at the site of Ziyang Meixi River Image source: Sichuan Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
In the 50s of the century, when the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway was built to Ziyang, an ancient human fossil was found, which is the skull of the "Ziyang people". After preliminary dating, the skull is about 35,000 years old. As the first fossil skull found after the founding of New China, the discovery of the fossil skull of the "Ziyang Man" attracted worldwide attention. Just 70 years after the fossil skull of the "Ziyang Man" was discovered, the site of the more ancient Mengxi River was found in Ziyang.
Through preliminary carbon dating measurements, the site of the Menixi River is more than 43,000 years old. Experts believe that the academic value of the Meixi River site is very significant, and it fills an important gap in this area and this period. The site of the Puxi River is only 35 kilometers away from the site of the "Ziyang people". Gao Xing, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said, "To understand the past and present life of the 'Ziyang people', the excavation and research of the Meixi River site is a beginning and a major breakthrough. "The rich archaeological materials such as stone tools, bone tools, and wooden tools unearthed at the site of the Meixi River show strong cultural and regional characteristics," the lack of raw materials for stone tools in the Meixi River, the local bedrock is loose sandstone, which cannot be made into tools, and ancient humans exerted their ingenuity and talents, using silicified wood, bone tools and wood tools as tools, showing the wisdom reflected in obtaining tool resources in order to adapt to local environmental resource conditions. ”
Wang Youping, a professor at the School of Archaeology and Museum of Peking University, believes that the Meixi River site is one of the clearest, most systematic and all-element sites in terms of the relationship between man and the environment among Paleolithic sites in China, and provides a vivid scene for restoring the life of ancient humans in the late Pleistocene.
Source: Xinhua News Agency, Sichuan Daily