Good News! The Bashan Site Group in Yishui, Shandong Province Is Awarded "Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China in 2023"
The highly anticipated final evaluation meeting of the top ten new archaeological discoveries in China in 2023 was held in Beijing from March 21 to 22, sponsored by China Cultural Relics Newspaper and China Archaeological Society. After the project report meeting and comprehensive evaluation, the judges finally voted for the top ten new archaeological discoveries in China in 2023. The Bashan Site Group in Yishui, Shandong Province, which was excavated by Shandong Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, was successfully selected. Since 2021, our institute has been selected for three consecutive years, with a total of 15 selected projects.
Guan Qiang, deputy director of National Cultural Heritage Administration and vice chairman of China Archaeological Society, announced
Top Ten New Archaeological Discoveries in China in 2023
(chronological order)
Bashan Site Group in Yishui, Shandong Province
Keqiutou Site Group in Pingtan, Fujian Province
Mopanshan Site in Langxi, Anhui Province
Qujialing Site in Jingmen, Hubei Province
He' nan Yongcheng Wangzhuang Site
Cemetery of Shuyuan Street, Shangdu, Zhengzhou, Henan Province
Shaanxi Qingjian Zhaigou Site
Sijiaoping Site in Lixian County, Gansu Province
Shanxi Huozhou Chencun Porcelain Kiln Site
Ruins of No.1 and No.2 Shipwrecks on the Northwest Slope of the South China Sea
Bashan Site Group in Yishui, Shandong Province
Excavation unit
Shandong Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology
Project leader
Li Gang
Project overview
The Bashan Site Complex refers to a group of over 80 Paleolithic sites centered around the Bashan Site in Yishui County, Shandong Province. Its discovery and research have preliminarily established an archaeological cultural sequence spanning from 10,000 to 100,000 years ago in the upper reaches of the Yi River.
Main findings
The findings at the Bashan Site provide critical clues for identifying more Paleolithic sites across broader temporal and spatial ranges. To date, over 80 sites from the Middle Paleolithic, Late Paleolithic, and the Paleolithic-Neolithic transition have been discovered in the upper Yi River region, including the Yihetou, Shuimen, Gezhuang, and Nanhuang sites. Among these, the Shuiquanyu Site, with the most substantial stratigraphic accumulation, has yielded preliminary dating results ranging from 20,900 to 65,000 years ago. This site encompasses two cultural traditions: microliths and simple core-flake tools. It has preserved at least 15,000 years of overlapping stratigraphy with the Bashan Site, showing clear continuity and development in lithic technology. More importantly, the layer containing microliths was dated using two different methods, with preliminary results clustering around 24,000 and 28,000 years ago. This positions Shandong as one of the regions in southern North China where early microlithic technology emerged, providing significant new evidence for exploring the origins of microliths in southern Northeast Asia.
Significance
The discovery has refined the developmental sequence of Paleolithic cultures and the progression of lithic technology in the Haidai region during the Late Pleistocene. The cultural characteristics of the Bashan site, which utilized simple quartz core-flake technology, evolved into the microlithic technology seen at the Shuiquanyu site around 30,000 years ago. This technological lineage continued through the Fenghuangling and Bianbiandong sites, eventually ushering in the Neolithic civilization process in the Haidai region.
The Bashan site group, represented by Bashan and Shuiquanyu, comprehensively reveals a stratigraphic profile dating from 100,000 to 20,000 years ago. It fully demonstrates the continuous historical development of ancient humans across time and space, and connects the scattered quartz Paleolithic remains featuring simple core-flake technology in the surrounding areas. This reveals the consistency of Paleolithic cultural traditions across North China, Central China, and even South China during the Late Pleistocene, illustrating that the characteristics of Chinese culture—diverse yet unified, and continuously developing over a long period—were already evident as early as the Paleolithic era.
For the first time, it reveals how ancient humans 100,000 years ago fully utilized megafauna resources, vividly reconstructing the historical scenario of our ancestors continuously adapting their survival strategies and subsistence methods in response to environmental changes caused by the alternating glacial and interglacial periods.
This provides crucial evidence for establishing the continuous evolution and development of early humans and culture in East Asia. The uninterrupted cultural accumulation and the continuous sequence of Paleolithic cultural development demonstrate the ongoing historical process of human evolution in this region, directly refuting the hypothesis that ancient humans in East Asia went extinct during the Last Glacial Maximum. It clearly illustrates the path of continuous evolution and development of early humans and culture in the Shandong region and East Asia as a whole.
