Huangyan Cave Site

Huangyan Cave Site

The Huangyan Cave Site is a cultural relic protection unit of Guangdong Province.

The Huangyan Cave Site Exhibition Hall is located at the southwestern foothill of Shiziyan in the Hekou Management Area of Hekou Town. It is an isolated Triassic limestone peak standing in a karst valley, with a slope in front of the cave entrance, continuous mountain ranges behind, and undulating peaks. The cave mouth faces southwest, with a relative elevation of 15 meters. The interior can be divided into upper and lower levels, and the western and southern sides of the cave hall each have branch caves. In 1980, the People's Government of Guangdong Province designated it as a provincial-level cultural relic protection unit.

In August 1961, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Guangdong Provincial Museum conducted a survey of karst caves in western Guangdong and discovered the Huangyan Cave Site. More than 80 chipped stone tools and one partially ground stone tool were unearthed in the cave hall. In April 1964, the Guangdong Provincial Museum, together with the Fengkai Cultural Center, re-examined and excavated the Huangyan Cave. In the grayish-brown deposits on the right side of the cave entrance, two human skull fossils were excavated, which were carbon-dated to be 11,930±200 years old. A batch of chipped stone tools was also obtained from the yellowish-brown deposits in the cave hall. In July 1978, the Guangdong Karst Cave Exploration Team and trainees of the Zhaoqing Regional Karst Cave Archaeological Training Class excavated the Huangyan Cave again, unearthing a batch of stone tools from the deposits at the cave entrance and in the cave hall. From the winter of 1989 to the spring of 1990, the Guangdong Provincial Museum, the Fengkai County Museum, and the Department of Anthropology at Sun Yat-sen University jointly conducted a large-scale clearance of the Huangyan Cave Site, obtaining a large number of chipped stone tools and mammalian tooth fossils. A Neolithic tomb was also cleared in the cave hall, where human bones, pottery, and pottery shards were found. Among the fill soil, chipped stone tools, perforated stone tools, and ground stone tools were also unearthed.

Excavation data shows that there are mainly four types of deposits in the cave: 1. Brownish-yellow clayey silt deposits. Found in localized areas on the right wall of the upper corridor and from the lower cave hall to the western branch cave, with the thickest accumulation in the western branch cave of the lower level. The deposits contain a large number of animal fossils with a high degree of petrification. The main animal species include the Chinese rhinoceros, the South China giant tapir, the Stegodon orientalis, and the giant panda cave subspecies, dating back to the Late Pleistocene. 2. Yellowish-brown sandy soil deposits, slightly harder in cementation, covering a large area and distributed throughout the cave hall, slightly thicker in the northeastern corner at 0.5–0.8 meters. The deposits contain ashes, charcoal fragments, a large number of chipped and ground stone tools, teeth and bones of extant animal species, as well as shells such as snails and clams. 3. Grayish-brown sandy soil deposits, slightly loosely cemented. Located on the right side of the cave entrance, overlaying the yellow deposits, covering an area 1 meter long, 1.5 meters wide, and 0.20–0.80 meters thick. The deposits contain charcoal fragments, ashes, burnt soil, burnt bones, animal bones, and a large number of snail and clam shells, with two human skull fossils unearthed. 4. Light gray sandy clay deposits, slightly loosely cemented. Located on the right side of the upper corridor. The deposit area is smaller, containing snail and clam shells and charcoal fragments, with one quartz flake stone tool discovered.

Over a thousand chipped stone tools were found at the Huangyan Cave Site, including types such as choppers, scrapers, stone cores, stone hammers, and perforators. Most retain the natural surface of the pebbles, with rough craftsmanship and simple processing. The edges of the tools are processed very steeply, with blade angles mostly above 70°. Most were made using the hammering method, with single-sided, unidirectional direct processing. These tools represent the transitional stage from the Paleolithic Age to the Neolithic Age and are indicative of the lithic industry of the Lingnan region during the Mesolithic Age.

The Huangyan Cave fossil animal group includes thirty species, belonging to the South China giant panda – stegodon animal group, dated to approximately 136,000±9,000 years ago, reflecting the subtropical ecological environment of the time. The cave cultural remains in the Lingnan region and even the broader South China region, represented by the Huangyan Cave in Fengkai and the Duzai Site in Yangchun, are valuable materials for studying the cultural features of this region around 10,000 years ago and earlier.

In 1991, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the discovery of the Huangyan Cave Site, the Fengkai County People's Government and relevant departments raised over 600,000 yuan to build the Huangyan Cave Exhibition Hall. Ye Xuanping, Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, inscribed the name of the Huangyan Cave Exhibition Hall. On November 23, the Huangyan Cave Site Exhibition Hall officially opened, and the International Academic Symposium on Ancient Cultures of the Xijiang River Basin was held concurrently, with a published collection of papers.

Further Reading:

· Second Batch of Guangdong Provincial Cultural Relic Protection Units