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Mammal Fossils Unearthed in East China
Archaeologists in east China's Jiangsu Province have recently discovered a large amount of fossils of mammals living in the early stage of the Paleolithic Age dating back 1 million years ago.
Archaeologists of the Nanjing Museum and the Nanjing Municipal Museum found the fossils when they were doing an excavation in Tuozidong Cave in Tangshan, a town in the suburb of Nanjing.
So far, about 30,000 pieces of fossils have been unearthed, including several thousand pieces of teeth and limbs, and over a dozen of relatively intact skulls.
Xu Huping, curator of the Nanjing Museum, said they have identified more than 30 species of ancient mammals. Among them are horses, baboons, buffaloes, rhinoceroses and antelopes.
The cave where the fossils were found is only 500 meters away from the venue where Chinese archaeologists discovered the skull fossils belonging to the Nanjing Apeman living about 500,000 years ago in 1993, Xu said.
The new discovery will offer an insight into the living environment of the Nanjing Apeman as well as the ancient geography and environment in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River, he added.
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