China's Top 10 Archaeological New Discoveries

In a nation renowned for its faultless social legacy over centuries, 21 leading experts in archaeology have invested a long time to choose the best finds of the previous year. An announcement was made about China’s Top 10 Archaeological New Discoveries in 2018 after months of analysis and evaluation by 21 top-tier experts from academic institutions, universities, and museums all over China.

The first edition of the award was created in 1990 and since then It has been considered as the country's most widely honored award in archaeological studies. The final winning 10 were chosen from 20 candidates in the final round of the competition.

1. In caves in Qingtang Town in southern China's Guangdong Province, remains to date back 10,000 to 25,000 years were found including fossils of human bones and cooking sites.

2. Archeologists in central China's Hubei Province found 212 ancient tombs back around 5,000 years to the Neolithic Age. The site was found in 1983, and mining started in March 2018 led to the discovery of the tombs.

3. The cultural items including pottery, stoneware, beware and jade were found in an archaeological digging with the ancient discovered housing and cooking sites and city walls, at Lushanmao Site in Yan'an City in northwest China's Shaanxi Province, that means that the city has significance from 4500 years the way before 2,300 years earlier than the previous estimate.

4 The evidence of coal use, which is estimated to be the world's earliest use so far, at the Jartai Pass Site in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region. The discovered items somewhat pushed the beginning of human coal use back by over 1,000 years.

5. A complex of royal tombs in northern China's Shanxi Province, including 12 tombs and six sacrificial pins from the late Shang Dynasty (around 1600-1046 BC), which provides new clues for the existence of the Shang Dynasty's capital Yin, famous for its large discovery of oracle bone script.

6. An archaeological discovery operation in Shaanxi Province discovered the remains of an ancient city, which included artifacts such as pottery pieces as well as four graveyards. The team also found a number of tombs. The city has been confirmed by archeologists to be the capital of an unfamous vassal state in the Eastern Zhou Dynasty (770-256 BC).

7. A team of Archeologists in eastern China's Jiangsu Province discovered the remains of ancient river channels and buildings as well as a series of relics at the Huangpu Site, which used to be an important port during the Tang Dynasty (618-907). This is expected to promote the ongoing concerning the journey of Jianzhen, a Chinese monk from the Tang Dynasty that traveled across the ocean to Japan to promote Chinese culture.

8. Archaeologists discovered relics dating back 1,800 years from a site for the Olympic village in Zhangjiakou City in northern China's Hebei Province. The site is believed to have been a summer palace for emperors in the Jin Dynasty (1115-1234).

9. As far as 35 relics of different parts of a city such as roads, drainage ditches, and houses at the Fanjiayan Site in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality. While executing a number of operation, dating back to the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279), they also found the remains of two pools, including a large number of plant seeds and specimens.

10. A ship of ancient time confirmed to be the warship Jingyuan sunk by the Japanese navy during the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), in northeast China's Liaoning Province has been found. They discovered with a conscious effort and found than 500 relics made of iron, glass, porcelain, leather and other materials.