Site of the Old Grandmother Temple

Site of the Old Grandmother Temple

The Site of the Old Grandmother Temple is a cultural heritage site protected at the provincial level in Henan Province.

The Site of the Old Grandmother Temple is located approximately 300 meters northwest of Daijiamen Village, Houzhai Township, Erqi District, Zhengzhou City. It sits on the second terrace of the eastern bank of the Jiuniangmiao River, an upstream tributary of the Jialu River. The site gets its name from an Old Grandmother Temple situated at its northwest corner. The site stretches over 200 meters from north to south and about 60 meters from east to west, covering an area of 12,000 square meters. In 2011 and 2012, the School of Archaeology and Museology at Peking University and the Zhengzhou Municipal Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology jointly excavated the site. They uncovered tens of thousands of cultural artifacts, including stone tools, bone implements, animal bones and fragments, as well as more than 30 fire-use features and ancient human activity surfaces formed by these remains. Compared with numerous contemporaneous sites discovered in the same river basin, this site is believed to have been a central campsite for human activities at that time. Accelerator radiocarbon dating indicates that the site dates back to around 45,000 years ago.

The Site of the Old Grandmother Temple falls within the critical timeframe for the emergence and development of modern humans and their behaviors. The newly discovered abundance of cultural relics at the site, especially the activity surface centered around ash accumulations, fills a gap in the understanding of Paleolithic culture in the Central Plains region and the East Asian continent during this period. It provides highly valuable new data for addressing key prehistoric archaeological questions regarding the origin and development of modern humans and their cultures in China and East Asia.

In 2019, the Site of the Old Grandmother Temple was included in the eighth batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level.

Source: Zhengzhou Municipal Bureau of Cultural Relics

Further reading:

· Seventh Batch of Cultural Heritage Sites Protected at the Provincial Level in Henan Province

· Eighth Batch of Major Historical and Cultural Sites Protected at the National Level