Fossil Site of Nanjing Man

Fossil Site of Nanjing Man

The Fossil Site of Nanjing Man is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Fossil Site of Nanjing Man is where the fossils of Nanjing Man were discovered, located 1 kilometer west of Tangshan Town in Jiangning District, Jiangsu Province. The fossil discovery site is Hulu Cave, a limestone karst cave in the Leigong Mountain range of the Ningzhen Mountains.

On March 13, 1993, during the tourism development of Tangshan's caves, a human skull fossil was excavated from a small cave located beneath the southern side of the main cave. On April 17, professionals from the Nanjing Museum, while cleaning animal fossils unearthed by local farmers, discovered another human skull fossil. From December 10 of the same year to January 16 of the following year, an excavation led by Lü Zun’e was carried out in the small cave where the two skull fossils were found. On January 8, a human tooth fossil was discovered in the lower part of the fossil layer at the southeastern corner of the small cave. Alongside these discoveries, over ten types of ancient animal fossils were also found, including giant deer, brown bears, raccoon dogs, and Chinese dholes. Research and analysis indicate that Nanjing Man lived during the mid-Middle Pleistocene, approximately 350,000 years ago, and belonged to the Homo erectus stage of human evolution.

In China’s sequence of ancient human evolution, Nanjing Man is placed in a relatively late phase of the Peking Man period but earlier than the Hexian Man of Anhui. The discovery of Nanjing Man provides significant insights into the environment, paleoclimate, migration of ancient animal species, and their relationship with humans at that time. It stands as a major find in the fields of ancient humans and Paleolithic archaeology in China. In 2006, the Fossil Site of Nanjing Man, as an ancient site from the Paleolithic era, was included in the sixth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units by the State Council.

Further Reading:

· Fourth Batch of Jiangsu Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Sixth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units