North China's Nihewan Ruins, known as the hometown of the oriental human beings, has demonstrated over one million years of human history in China.
Located in Shanxi Province and Hebei Province, the Nihewan Ruins has more than 400 archaeological sites scattered on a 9,000 square kilometers area, forming a complete stratigraphic sequence spanning from two million to 10,000 years ago and building up a complete chain of evidence for the independent evolution and development of ancient human beings in East Asia.
From the control of fires by homo erectus, the budding of art in early Homo sapiens, to the beginnings of complex societies in homo sapiens, this area has preserved the complete chronology of the development of human intelligence.
First discovered in the 1920s, the area has seen the excavation of a large number of paleolithic relics dating back about two million years.
In 2018, more than 20 fossilized mammoth footprints dating back around 1.6 million years were found alongside dozens of stone tools and animal fossils at the Nihewan ruins area.
In 2024, an international research team led by Chinese scientists found that East Asian hominins had possessed advanced stone tool technology as early as 1.1 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought.
Recently, a batch of stone tools and paleontological fossils were sent to the Natural History Museum of China to meet the public.
A model of the third layer of the Majuangou site at the exhibition showcased a scene of humans dining more than 1.6 million years.
"These gray items are pieces of steppe mammoth skeletons, and scattered among them are many stone tools including lithic cores, lithic flakes and scrapers. One of the scrapers was still in close contact with animal fossils when unearthed," said Wei Yi, an associate researcher at the Natural History Museum of China.
"We also found very clear signs of slashing and cutting on many skeleton fossils, indicating that ancient humans probably made stone tools at this site, and then used the tools to dismember, cut and eat steppe mammoths. We call this the first meal of the oriental humans, about 1.66 million years ago," she added.
After many years of archaeological excavations, the seventh cultural layer has been identified at the Majuangou site. Its geological age is the early Pleistocene, and its cultural age is the early Old Stone Age.
According to paleomagnetic dating results, the ages from the third to the seventh cultural layer are 1.66, 1.69, 1.74, 1.75 and 1.76 million years, respectively, which is the clear evidence of the earliest human emergence in the Nihewan basin and even the high latitude region of the entire Northeast Asia.
The newly discovered braised soil area at the Majuangou site has aroused great attention in the academic community. This discovery may move the time for oriental humans to master controlled fire to a stage comparable to that of early Homo sapiens in Africa.
Nihewan Ruins demonstrates over one million years of human history in China
