240,000 prehistoric artefacts found in China

BEIJING - Archaeologists in China have unearthed over 240,000 prehistoric relics near the Three Gorges Reservoir in Hubei province, officials said Monday.

Since 1992, archaeologists have excavated 1,087 archaeological sites scattered across 22 cities and counties in the region. The artefacts found include cultural relics dating back to more than two million years to the Old Stone Age.

Relics from the Xia (21st century B.C.-16th century B.C.) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties were found, Xinhua reported citing the Cultural Heritage Bureau.

China has allocated more than 1.9 billion yuan ($285 million) to excavate and protect the relics found in the region, said Wang Fengzhu, director of the Three Gorges Reservoir cultural relics protection department.

The dig was the largest ever archaeological excavation project in China with the highest number of experts involved. At one point of time, there were over 1,000 experts at the site, said Tong Mingkang, vice director with the State Administration of Cultural Heritage.

The Three Gorges Reservoir is on the upper middle-reaches of the Yangtze, China’s longest river. China began building it in 1993 at a cost equivalent to $22.5 billion.