Prehistoric man’s cave found in southwest China
May 9th, 2009 - 12:21 pm ICT by ANINew Delhi, May 9 (ANI): A group of construction workers have accidentally stumbled upon a prehistoric man’s cave underneath a Buddhist temple in southwest China’s Guizhou Province.
The stone structure, containing hundreds of mammal fossils and stone implements, was between 10,000 and 40,000 years old and presumably dated back either to the end of the Old Stone Age or the start of New Stone Age, according to Cai Huiyang, a top archaeologist with the Guizhou Provincial Museum.
“We hired the workers to relocate one of the Buddha statues at a donor’s suggestion last month,” said Sheng Guo, abbot of Simingdong Temple in Xiuwen County, in the northern suburbs of the provincial capital Guiyang.
After they removed the statue, the workers found a hole about the size of a rice bowl, and caught a snake about 6 cm thick.
“When they dug deeper, they found the stone cave and the fossils,” said Guo.
After two weeks of research at the site, Cai and his colleagues concluded it was a prehistoric residence of human beings, similar to that of the Peking Man found in Beijing early last century.
Before this major discovery, Cai said archaeologists had found pieces of similar animal fossils and stone implements near the temple.
“We’re conducting research to see whether the cave should be excavated further in search of human skeletons and other relics,” he said.
Guizhou is home to a number of heritage sites, including a prehistoric man’s cave in Panxian County that contains fossils of mammals, birds, fishes and a human tooth. (ANI)
- 100,000-yr-old fossilized teeth of cavemen found in Central China - Nov 27, 2010
- Gas leak kills 8 in SW China coal mine - Mar 28, 2011
- 30,000 B.C. cave home found in China - May 11, 2011
- Man dies of bird flu in China - Jan 23, 2012
- 400,000-yr-old remains show 'humans evolved from Middle East, not Africa' - Dec 28, 2010
- 5000 stone statues older than Terracotta warriors discovered in Hunan - Aug 19, 2010
- 13 die in China coal mine blast - Mar 12, 2011
- 19 killed in China coal mine blast (Lead) - Mar 12, 2011
- Did first humans emerge from Middle East, not Africa? - Dec 28, 2010
- Teeth, tools found in Israeli cave shed new light on human origin - Jan 28, 2011
- 11,000-year-old human sub-species found in China - Mar 15, 2012
- Hundreds of fossils found outside Argentina's capital - Apr 20, 2012
- Ancient teeth found in Israeli cave raise questions about humans' origin - Feb 10, 2011
- East China dino museum is world's largest - Oct 15, 2010
- Six dead in China building collapse - Mar 29, 2011
Tags: animal fossils, buddha statues, buddhist temple, conducting research, guiyang, guizhou province, human skeletons, human tooth, mammal fossils, new stone age, northern suburbs, old stone age, peking man, prehistoric man, provincial capital, provincial museum, rice bowl, southwest china, stone implements, stone structure