Gaojia Town Site

Gaojia Town Site

The Gaojia Town Site is a National Key Cultural Relics Protection Unit.

Era: Paleolithic Age

Type: Ancient Site

Region: Fengdu County, Chongqing Municipality

Batch: Fifth Batch

The Gaojia Town Site is located in Guihua Neighborhood Committee, Gaojia Town, Fengdu County, Chongqing, on the third terrace of the right bank of the Yangtze River. Its geographic coordinates are 107°56′54″ east longitude and 30°00′16″ north latitude. Cultural relics are distributed between altitudes of 173 to 180 meters, covering an area of over 10,000 square meters. It is a site from the middle to late Paleolithic Age, with a cultural layer about 5 meters thick. The site was discovered in March 1993 during a survey by the Three Gorges Cultural Relics Team of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, in the Fengdu Reservoir Area. In May of the same year, Professor Zhang Senshui, a renowned expert in Paleolithic archaeology and member of the expert group of the National Cultural Heritage Administration, confirmed it after an on-site investigation. From October to December 1995, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Chinese Academy of Sciences (referred to as the IVPP) and the Chongqing Natural History Museum, with the assistance of the Fengdu County Cultural Relics Administration, conducted a formal excavation of the Gaojia Town Paleolithic Site and used the site as a training base to run a Paleolithic Archaeology Training Course for the Three Gorges Region, cultivating a group of professionals for Paleolithic archaeological work in the area. During this excavation, 19 2×2-meter squares (referred to as Area A) were laid out, covering an excavated area of 64 square meters. Cultural relics were buried in the gravel layer below 6.7 meters from the surface, with some already cemented or forming conglomerate rock. Three horizontal excavation layers, 30–50 cm thick, were cleared, yielding more than 1,500 stone artifacts, most of which were stone cores, with a few being tools made for processing daily necessities, such as flakes, choppers, and scrapers. From February to April 1998, the IVPP carried out another excavation of the site, unearthing a large number of stone artifacts, most of which were found in their original stratigraphic layers, while some were exposed on the stratigraphic profile. The Gaojia Town Site is a very important open-air site from the early Paleolithic Age, with a large distribution area, which is quite rare in South China. It holds significant value for studying the development of Paleolithic cultures in the Yangtze River Basin and even Southeast Asia. On September 7, 2000, it was approved and announced by the Chongqing Municipal Government as one of the first batch of key cultural relics protection units in Chongqing; on June 25, 2001, it was approved and announced by the State Council as part of the fifth batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units.

Guihua Community: Guihua Community…… Detailed information of Guihua Community++

Further Reading:

· Fifth Batch of National Key Cultural Relics Protection Units