Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee

Chinese archaeologists have discovered and identified six Late Paleolithic sites in Xinbin Manchu Autonomous County, Northeast China's ­Liaoning Province, since the launch of China's fourth national cultural relics census, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

The sites are primarily located in Nanzamu and Shangjiahe townships, mostly situated on third-level terraces or hillsides near abundant water sources. A variety of stone tools have been collected from these sites, including flake tools, scrapers, unifacial cores, disc-shaped cores and a small number of other implements.

"These new discoveries provide fresh insights into the distribution and activities of ancient humans in the middle and upper reaches of the Hunhe River," said Xiao Jingquan, a member of Fushun's fourth cultural relics census expert team.

Zhao Hailong, a professor at the School of ­Archaeology and Museology at Liaoning University, told the Global Times on Sunday that the discoveries fill a critical gap in the record of Paleolithic sites along the middle and upper reaches of the Hunhe River. 

"They offer us important evidence for understanding ancient humans' strategies for using and developing stone tool materials, their technological levels and cultural interactions in this region," Zhao said.

Among the discoveries is one site at Langtougou in southern Xinbin, where the team leader Quan Yuedong found a finely crafted stone tool, roughly the size of an adult's hand. These grayish-blue stones, marked with deep or shallow flake scars, are rounded and easy to grip, making them well-suited for everyday tasks such as cutting or scraping, as reported by the Liaoning Daily.

This discovery at Langtougou offers archaeologists a glimpse into the life during the Paleolithic period. The six newly identified sites, including Langtougou, are all located within Xinbin.

Xinbin is an important archaeological region in Northeast China with a rich cultural heritage, although few prehistoric remains have been documented there. Previously, only a handful of Neolithic artifacts dating back about 5,000 years had been found in cave sites along the Taizi River, considered the earliest cultural evidence in the city of Fushun. The new Paleolithic finds extend the region's human history by more than 10,000 years.

Xiao emphasized the need for archaeologists to focus their efforts on Fushun and the ­Qingyuan Manchu Autonomous County. 

"If we can identify stratified Paleolithic deposits and conduct systematic research, especially if we find animal fossils associated with the stone tools and apply dating methods to them, it will establish a more rigorous scientific basis for Paleolithic archaeology in Fushun," Xiao said.

Since the beginning of the fourth cultural relics census, Fushun has discovered 59 new immovable cultural heritage sites. By carefully examining stone artifacts collected from these comparable locations and cross-referencing them with artifacts from the city's second cultural relics census, archaeologists determined that these sites indeed belong to the Late Paleolithic period.