Archeologists in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region have identified a cluster of caves on a paleolithic site, the first ever found in the region.
The ruins in Jeminay County date back at least 40,000 years, and workers excavated them from July to September, said Yu Jianjun, researcher with the regional institute of cultural relics and archaeology, on Sunday.
More than 400 objects, including stoneware, pottery and bronze, as well as animal fossils, were unearthed. The findings spanned the Old Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age, Yu said.
The stone objects resemble Mousterian style, a culture distinguished by its wide range of stone tools, and often associated with Neanderthals from the middle period of the Old Stone Age in Europe, Central and West Asia, and North Africa.
Excavation of the ruins will continue in 2017 and 2018.
