Como photo taken on March 19, 2017 shows golden ingot and jewelleries unearthed during an archaeological excavation at Pengshan District in Meishan City, southwest China's Sichuan Province. (Xinhua/Li He)
Chinese archaeologists have selected the top 10 archaeological discoveries in China in 2017, which were published by the China Archaeological Society and a newspaper sponsored by the State Administration of Cultural Heritage on Tuesday:
1. In a cave at the crossroads of China, central Asia, and Europe, archeologists found remains dating back 3,500 to 45,000 years. It is the first Paleolithic cave site found in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
2. Archaeologists measured 5,000-year-old bones found in graves at a ruins site at Jiaojia village in Zhangqiu District of Jinan, capital of east China's Shandong Province, and identified some unusually tall and strong people, with at least one man having reached 1.9 meters in height.
3. Archaeologists found remains of settlements with defensive systems, water conservation facilities, and a public cemetery which appeared to be a structure of a city dating back 5,500 years in Yangguan Village in Xi'an, capital of northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Experts believed the findings date the establishment of Xi'an as a capital city 2,500 years earlier than previously thought.
4. Excavation of the Yaoheyuan Ruins in Pengyang County of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region showed that this region might have been under the imperial rule of Chinese emperors much earlier than archaeologists previously thought.
5. Ruins including horse and chariot pits and city gates excavated in Xinzheng in central China's Henan Province provided precious information for the study of the Zheng and Han states during the Spring and Autumn period (770 B.C.-476 B.C.).
6. Archaeologists unearthed a rare basement and fireplace in the ruins of Yueyang, capital of the Qin state during the Warring States Period (476 B.C.-221 B.C.). The remains are in Yanliang District in Xi'an, northwest China's Shaanxi Province.
7. Excavation of an emperor's mausoleum from the eastern Han Dynasty (25-220) in Luoyang, central China's Henan Province, further completed the picture of the mausoleum and is significant in studying the evolution of the mausoleum.
8. Archaeologists unearthed the ruins of China's largest Taoist temple - the Great Shangqing Palace - at Longhu Mountain in east China's Jiangxi Province and found that its structure bears a striking resemblance to that of palaces in Beijing's Forbidden City, the former imperial residence.
9. The ruins of the town of Baoma, on a hill in Antu County in northeast China's Jilin Province, have been shown to be the oldest temple used by the royal family in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234) for worship at Mount Changbai. The ruins are among the best preserved and the most important architectural remains of the Jin Dynasty.
10. Archaeologists found artifacts at the site of a peasant uprising at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) from the Jiangkou stretch of the Minjiang River in Meishan, southwest China's Sichuan Province.
China has listed its top 10 archaeological findings every year since 1990.
