Sails Cave

Sails Cave

Sails Cave

Sails Cave is located on the western slope of the rock formation, at a relative height of 3 meters. The cultural deposits inside the cave are divided into upper and lower layers. The lower cultural layer yielded over 300 chipped stone tools such as stone cores, flakes, choppers, scrapers, points, and hand hammers, as well as fossils of more than 10 species of mammals including giant tapir, Chinese rhinoceros, hyena, and brown bear. It also revealed an artificially paved stone floor spanning about 120 square meters, dating back approximately 20,000–30,000 years. The upper cultural layer produced over 80 chipped stone tools, along with a small number of partially ground bone shovels, bone awls, and horn ornaments, dating back around 10,000 years.

In the upper cultural layer of Wanshouyan’s Sails Cave, the coexistence of chipped stone tools and ground bone and horn implements aligns more closely with the cultural characteristics of the Chao Yin Cave from the “Changbin Culture,” yet it predates the Chao Yin Cave by several thousand years. It represents the earliest known Paleolithic cultural remains in Fujian and Taiwan to date, providing extremely valuable comparative material for studying the shared ancient cultural roots between the two sides of the Taiwan Strait.