What are the fossils of Xihoudou Man like?

The Xihoudou Man is an ancient human being found in Xihoudou Village, Richeng County, Shanxi Province, China, and its production and activity sites are also one of the typical representatives of the cultural remains of the early ape stage in China. At the same time found many mammal fossils and antlers with cut marks, as well as some of the surface of the dark gray mammal ribs and horse teeth of the burnt bone, geomagnetic determination of its stratigraphic age of 1.8 million years ago.

The Xihoudou human culture site is the earliest human cultural remains found in the north of China, predating the Yuanmou apes by about 100,000 years. In particular, the astonishing discovery of burnt bones indicates that humans learned to make fire here and began to cook food, thus reducing their dependence on nature and promoting physical progress and health. It is said that no other country in the world has found such ancient burnt bones.

Xihoudou Village is located on the east bank of the Yellow River, near Fenglindu, a place where "the cock crows in three provinces". During the long Paleolithic period, the Xihoudou "apes" had already said goodbye to the state of raw food, which was a very important step in the evolution of mankind.

Human cultural relics are mainly stone products and antlers with cut marks. Animal fossils include giant beaver, carp, Shanxi axis deer, rough-faced axis deer, rough and magnificent cattle, Shanxi lance rhinoceros, Sanmen horse, ancient Chinese bison, Jinnan elk, Bu's antelope, Li's wild boar, and Nama elephant. Stone products unearthed in small quantities, mainly quartzite as raw materials, types of stone nuclei, stone flakes, scrapers, chopping tools, three-pronged large pointed ware. In addition, a number of special fossil specimens were found in the cultural layer of Xihoudou site, with black, gray, and gray-green colors, mostly mammal ribs, antlers and horse teeth. Laboratory results showed that most of the specimens were burned with fire.

Peking people are known to use fire, but the history of human use of fire did not start with the Peking people. The discovery of this batch of burnt bone materials in Xihoudou pushed the history of human fire use to more than one million years ago. This is the earliest evidence of human fire use in China. The discovery of stone tools and antlers with cut marks, as well as burnt bones, proves that there was human activity here 1.8 million years ago.

Reminiscent of 1.8 million years ago, the Xihoudou people gathered, fished and hunted here. They made the scraping tool, hacking tool, etc. has a human-made stone components, the site with cut marks in the antlers and the discovery of burnt animal bones, indicating that they have been "fire god" conquered underfoot, revealing the "spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit of the spirit" of the charm. Human use of fire may be earlier than 1.8 million, there may be undiscovered.

The stone tools of the Xihoudou culture are mainly characterized by the processing of stone flakes, which belongs to the tradition of stone flake technology, which is fundamentally different from the tradition of European stone core technology. In the processing of stone tools, one-sided processing toward the body is dominant. Fossilized antlers were found, near the main branch of the antler node on the rear side, there is a groove with the main branch diagonally intersected with the cross-section of the "V" shape, should be artificially cut or hacked out of the artifacts.

After 1.8 million years ago, Xihoudou was the bank of the Yellow River or lakes related to the Yellow River, the Yellow River is much higher than now, now Xihoudou from the Yellow River straight line distance is only more than 10 miles, the Yellow River is lower than the place tens of meters.

Millions of years ago, the two provinces of Jin and Qin were separated only by the narrow but deep valley of the Yellow River. Millions of years have passed, and the Yellow River has continued to fall back on its banks, scouring the loose Loess Plateau into a wide and deep valley, while the Yellow River and the Loess Plateau have shaped the North China Plain.

It can be seen that the area around Xihoudu at that time should be a sparsely forested grassland environment. Although the relics of Xihoudu are buried in the sand layer deposited by the river, the source is not too far away, which can indicate that people at that time were active along the riverbank area.

The site has unearthed fish and giant beavers, proving that there was a wider range of water here at that time. Judging from the carp gill cover bones, the carp here is more than half a meter, so there should have been wide and deep stable waters near Xihoudou at that time.

The Loess Plateau of Qin and Jin on both sides of the Yellow River used to be an identical whole, separated only by the wide and deep river valley formed by the constant scouring of the Yellow River, a fine river. Today, this wide and deep valley is the result of the ever-flowing Yellow River. The fossilized river fish in Xihoudou also illustrates this. At the same time, it also proves that the Yellow River region is an important civilization origin place for human beings.

The large number of stone tools and animal fossils as well as burnt bones all over the surrounding area fully indicates that people around Xihoudu in the ancient times had already come into contact with burnt animals and recognized the role of fire, and human beings had entered the stage of cooked food. Xihoudou stone products, although affected by the river handling buried, but human behavior and its characteristics are undoubtedly.

Stone flakes