The Hualongdong site is an important paleoanthropological site discovered in China, following the Beijing Zhoukoudian site. On November 25, it was announced at a symposium commemorating the 10th anniversary of the discovery of the Hualongdong human skull fossil that during the cleaning of cementations, archaeologists uncovered a new human tooth fossil, a suspected human femur fossil, and a large number of small prehistoric fossils. These discoveries provide new key evidence for research on the evolution of East Asian hominins.

On the same day, 21 experts and scholars from institutions such as the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, and Shandong University conducted a field investigation of the Hualongdong paleoanthropological site and its archaeological excavation area. They also held a symposium for academic discussions.

On November 18, 2015, the "Hualongdong No. 6" skull fossil was unearthed. This fossil preserves key features of the facial structure and mandible, providing concrete evidence that East Asian humans had completed the transition from "archaic" to "modern" forms 300,000 years ago. It serves as core physical evidence supporting the "regional continuity" hypothesis of human evolution. As it was discovered within the territory of Dongzhi County, it has been academically named the "Dongzhi Girl." Over the past decade, the Hualongdong site has yielded more than 40 human fossils, 400 stone tools, a large number of bone fragments with artificial cut and smash marks, and over 100 species of animal fossils.

"This year, we discovered many small mammal fossils that were not found in previous years. Additionally, during the cleaning of cementations, the most important findings were a human tooth fossil and a suspected femur fossil, providing new key evidence for the study of the evolution of East Asian hominins," revealed Wu Xiujie, a researcher from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, at the symposium.

Ye Runqing, Director of the Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology, emphasized that these discoveries not only concretize key nodes in East Asian human evolution but also bridge public understanding of ancient civilization through the "Dongzhi Girl" IP.

Source: Anhui Daily