Bailian Cave Cave Science Museum

Bailian Cave Cave Science Museum

Bailian Cave Cave Science Museum is a national AAAA-level tourist attraction.

Liuzhou boasts a profound prehistoric culture. Seventy thousand years ago, this area was home to the Liujian people.

In 1956, under the leadership of Chinese paleoanthropologists Pei Wenzhong and Jia Lanpo, the South China Work Team of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, discovered the ancient human site of Bailian Cave in Liuzhou.

Through multiple excavations, over 500 stone tools, two human tooth fossils, more than 3,500 animal bone fossils, and two sites of ancient human fire use were unearthed.

These fossils (artifacts) indicate that the “Bailian Cave people,” living approximately 50,000 years ago, had already mastered sewing clothes, using fire, and cooking food, forming what is known as the Bailian Cave Culture.

The prehistoric human culture of Bailian Cave is a cultural treasure of Liuzhou, Guangxi, and the nation, which needs to be explored, inherited, and promoted.

The Bailian Cave site holds an important position in the field of archaeology. Pei Wenzhong once remarked: “China can become the center of paleoanthropological research in the world, and Guangxi is the center of the center.”

Many Chinese and foreign experts and scholars have spoken highly of Bailian Cave after visiting and studying it.

Professor Jia Lanpo, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, inscribed the following for the 40th anniversary of the discovery of the Bailian Cave site: “The fragrance of the white lotus remains unstained by the mud; the cave’s deposits hold abundant meanings.”

Japanese scholar Uehara Kazuo and International Union of Speleology President Ford also conducted research at Bailian Cave, concluding that the Japanese, Koreans, and Southeast Asians lacked their own independent ancient human cultures, and that their genes bear certain similarities to those of the ancient humans from Bailian Cave.

The ancient human cultural tourism resources of Bailian Cave are in urgent need of deeper excavation, inheritance, and promotion. Creative promotional ideas are now required to revive the brilliance of ancient human culture and develop a tourism route that focuses on ancient human culture while connecting other regional tourism resources.

Since its establishment, the museum has been recognized as an Eco-tourism Demonstration Experimental Area by the China Ecological Society, a Science Education Base of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, one of Guangxi’s Top Ten Cultural and Museum Educational Courses, and a social practice base for over fifty schools including Guangxi Normal University, Guangxi University of Science and Technology, and various primary and secondary schools in Liuzhou. In 2020, it was selected as one of the one hundred exhibitions themed “Promoting Excellent Traditional Culture and Cultivating Core Socialist Values” by the National Cultural Heritage Administration, and was also rated as a national AAAA-level tourist attraction in 2020.