Qihuo Cave Site

Qihuo Cave Site

The Qihuo Cave Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

The Qihuo Cave Site is located in Zaotou Village, Xianghu Town, Zhangping, Longyan City. It was discovered during the third national cultural relics survey in 2008. The site is situated on the western side of a relatively isolated limestone hill in the village. The cave mouth faces west and is 17 meters wide and 4.5 meters high, with an interior area of 300 square meters and multiple branch caves. Excavations have revealed cultural layers from the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods dating back approximately 17,000 to 7,000 years, as well as house foundations from the Song, Yuan, Ming, and Qing dynasties. A large number of valuable ancient vertebrate fossils, pottery, stone tools, bone tools, and human teeth, bones, and a complete late Homo sapiens skull from the Neolithic period have been unearthed. The archaeological findings at the Qihuo Cave Site not only fill the gap in the prehistoric cultural transition from the Paleolithic to the Neolithic in Fujian and even southeastern China, but also provide crucial physical evidence for studying the human living environment, technological development, and changes in subsistence patterns during the Paleolithic-Neolithic transition. It was designated as a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit in 2013.

Zaotou Village: Zaotou Village is located in the northwest of Xianghu Town, about 6.5 kilometers directly from Xianghu Market, the town center. It administers the natural villages of Zaotou, Jiangtian, Waiqihuo, Fukeng, Qitouyu, and Dangyang, with the village committee located in Zaotou. The total area is about 17 square kilometers. Nestled among towering mountains and valleys, the settlements are distributed in a network-like pattern. It has 153 households and a population of 773, all of whom are Han Chinese and speak the Zhangping dialect of Southern Min.

At the village entrance there is a stone weir, which was called "Qitou" during the Qing Dynasty. Later, due to homophonic evolution in the local dialect, it became its current name. During the Ming and Qing dynasties and the early Republic of China, it belonged to Qitou Township of Changela Changta She. In 1934, it was called Zaotou Bao and was successively under the jurisdiction of Xianghu Lianbao in the Xinan (Third) District... More detailed information about Zaotou Village++

Further Reading:

· Eighth Batch of Fujian Provincial Cultural Relics Protection Units

· Seventh Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units