Tiaotougang Site

Tiaotougang Site

The Tiaotougang Site is a protected cultural heritage site of Hunan Province.

The Tiaotougang Site is located in Taohua Village, Shiji Bridge Town, Linli County. With an excavation area of just 30 square meters, though small in size, it yielded approximately 6,000 various stone artifacts, clearly indicating that the site was a stone tool manufacturing workshop. Such a dense distribution of stone tools at Tiaotougang had not been previously discovered in Hunan. The large quantity of stone flakes unearthed is relatively rare in China, and it marked the first time a significant number of blade flakes were found in southern China. This indicates that the stone tool manufacturing techniques of the people at that time were more advanced than before, providing important data for understanding the lithic industry of the Late Paleolithic period in Hunan. The Tiaotougang Site reflects a new archaeological culture type — the "Tiaotougang Culture."

On March 2, 2012, the National Cultural Heritage Information Network announced the candidate list for the Top Ten Archaeological Discoveries of 2011, and the Tiaotougang Paleolithic Site along the Daoshui River in Linli, Hunan was included.

In March 2019, the Tiaotougang Site was included in the tenth batch of Provincial-Level Protected Cultural Heritage Sites of Hunan Province.

Further Reading:

· Tenth Batch of Protected Cultural Heritage Sites of Hunan Province