Chenshan Site

Chenshan Site

The Chenshan Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The history of human activity in Xuancheng can be traced back to prehistoric times. A large number of stone tools unearthed from the Paleolithic Chenshan site in Xiangyang Town prove that humans were already laboring, living, and reproducing on this land as early as 600,000 years ago.

Chenshan is located 15 kilometers south of downtown Xuancheng, in Zhao Bian village group, Xia Cun administrative village, Xiangyang Town, at 118°2' east longitude and 30°53' north latitude. The site is about 1,000 meters east of the Shuiyang River, with rolling hills to the southwest and plains and green space to the north. The Chenshan Site lies at the northeastern end of a southwest-northeast trending ridge, which is an extension of the Huangshan Mountain Range. Its peak elevation is 45 meters, with a relative height of 25 meters. Locally known as Chenshan, it is also called Laolong Mountain. The area has accumulated alluvial deposits from the Shuiyang River and other sediments. The geological age spans from the late Early Pleistocene to the late Late Pleistocene. The stratum age ranges from 817,000 to 126,000 years ago, and the cultural period covers the early to middle-late Paleolithic.

The Chenshan Site is situated on the former site of the First Xiangyang Brick and Tile Factory. It was discovered during a 1987 cultural relics survey, with a stone tool-bearing deposit area of approximately 140,000 square meters. Years of soil extraction by the brick factory caused significant damage to the stone tool location, but a large area of Quaternary deposits containing Paleolithic artifacts still remains. In 1988, the Anhui Provincial Government designated it as a provincial cultural relics protection unit, and in June 2001, the State Council listed the Chenshan Site as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Since 1988, the Anhui Provincial Institute of Archaeology has conducted three excavations and multiple surveys at the Chenshan Paleolithic site, uncovering over 300 stone artifacts and surface and stratigraphic finds. The stone tools are predominantly large cobble tools, with few flake tools. The main types include choppers, pointed choppers, points, and scrapers, which differ significantly from the Paleolithic cultures of northern China. The stones are mostly quartz sandstone, followed by sandstone and quartzite, with only a small amount of siliceous rock. During excavation, clusters of concentrated cobbles and stone artifacts were found in the strata, indicating evidence of on-site stone tool production and use.

All three excavations followed the original soil extraction profile of the brick factory, with an average cultural layer thickness of 7 meters, reaching up to 10 meters at its thickest. The strata can be divided into 10 layers: Layer 1, yellowish-brown silty clay, yielded 3 cultural relics from after the Shang and Zhou periods; Layer 2, brownish-yellow silty clay, produced 7 stone artifacts; Layer 3, reddish-brown silty clay, contained 12 stone tools; Layer 4, orange-yellow silty clay, had 1 stone tool; Layer 5, reddish-brown silty clay, yielded 2 stone tools; Layer 6, yellow silty clay, contained 3 stone tools; Layer 7, brownish-red silty clay, had 24 stone tools; Layer 8, yellowish-red silty clay, yielded 5 stone tools; Layer 9, light yellow silty clay, contained 2 stone tools; and Layer 10, purple silty clay, had 22 stone tools. Although the excavation areas were not large and the number of stone tools varied by layer, not fully reflecting human activities across all cultural periods, artifacts were found in every layer. Over 1,000 meters east of the Paleolithic site, on the eastern bank of the Shuiyang River at the Sunbu Middle School terrace, lies a larger Neolithic site. This site is especially rich in artifacts, including stone shovels, axes, adzes, arrowheads, spears, and battle-axes, as well as abundant pottery remains such as tripods, cauldrons, kettles, net sinkers, and painted pottery. The time span ranges from Neolithic to the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties. This means that from the Paleolithic through the Neolithic to the present, human activity on this land in Xuancheng has never been interrupted—it is an important part of the survival and development of the Chinese nation.

The Anhui Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology has identified nearly 10 Paleolithic sites in the Shuiyang River basin, covering an area of 1,000 square kilometers. These represent a new type of Paleolithic culture in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River. The Chenshan Paleolithic site in Xiangyang, with its large area, thick cultural layer deposits, and abundant relics, may be the center of the Paleolithic site cluster in the lower Yangtze region. This area might also have been a habitat for groups of early humans. The discovery of the Xiangyang Paleolithic site cluster fills the gap in the study of the Paleolithic in the lower Yangtze region, where previously only human fossils were found without associated cultural relics, providing valuable physical material for researching the survival, life, and development of ancient humans in the lower Yangtze area.

Protected area: With the center point of the site as the base, 130 meters east and west, and 100 meters north and south.

Construction control zone: 50 meters beyond the protected area in all directions—east, south, west, and north.

Further reading:

· Fifth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units