Summary of Chongqing Prehistoric Sites

By, Xinyi Li, EDITOR

Three or four thousand years ago, the ancestors of the Ba people lived in Chongqing for generations and created the Ba Culture. Before that, where did the early human activities in Chongqing take place and what was life like? Chongqing Planning and Natural Resources Bureau and Chongqing Geographic Information Center released the Map of Ancient Sites in Chongqing (Prehistory)(the Map), which shows the prehistoric sites found in Chongqing, including the Longgupo Site, Zhongba Site, Dadukow Mawangchang Ruins, and Daxi Culture Heritage Site.

There are two types of human relics on the earth, namely, the remains of the human skeleton and the traces of human behavior, including human settlements, activity relics, labor tools, and cultural relics. According to the current scientific investigation on human sites in Chongqing, the prehistoric culture in this area originated in the early Paleolithic Period 2 million years ago, with the representative ancient human being the Wushan Man. It ended in the late Neolithic Period more than 4,000 years ago with the representative culture being the Daxi Culture of Wushan.

According to the Map, among the prehistoric sites in Chongqing, the Longgupo Site is the earliest cultural relic of the Paleolithic Period. Namely, the human fossils and stone tools found in the Longgupo Cave under the plantation surface, which is an elevation of 830 meters, of the Shanyuan period in the Longping Village, Miaoyu Town, Wushan County. According to the paleomagnetic dating, the fossil dated back to 2.04 million to 2.01 million years ago. In 1996, the Longgupo Site was listed in the fourth batch of the national key cultural relics protection units.

Zhongba Site is located in Zhongxian County of Chongqing, and the cultural deposit there is 12.5 meters thick. It goes through the Neolithic Period, the Xia, Shang, Western Zhou Dynasties, the Spring and Autumn and the Warring States Periods, and the Qin, Han, Southern, Tang, Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing Dynasties. Therefore, it fully displays the five thousand years of Chinese civilization. Moreover, it was listed as one of the Top 10 Archaeological Discoveries in China of 1998 and was also known as the Most Valuable Ancient Cultural Site in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region.

Dadukow Mawangchang Ruins boasts the earliest human activities in the main urban regions in Chongqing. Among the stone tools unearthed there, the most representative one is the hand axe of the Paleolithic Period excavated in 1987, which proves that Dadukow Mawangchang Ruins was the earliest place where ancient human beings lived in the main urban regions of Chongqing 0.8 million to 1 million years ago, much earlier than those found previously.

Daxi Culture Heritage Site is situated in the south of the Qutang Gorge with numerous house sites, tombs, and unearthed cultural relics, and there are similar cultural relics along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River and its tributaries, which are collectively called the Daxi Culture by archeologists. Additionally, both the Daxi Culture and the Yangshao Culture in the Central Plain are important cultural relics of different types in the Neolithic Period which interact with each other.

Source: Chongqing Morning News