On April 13, the national top ten new archaeological discoveries of the year 2020 were announced. The Zhaoguodong Relics Site in Gui'an New District, Guizhou Province, jointly excavated by SCU’s School of Archaeology and Museology(SAM), Guizhou Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute and Chengdu Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute, was selected as the "Top Ten New Chinese Archaeological Discoveries in 2020".

Prof. Lu Hongliang from SAM has served as the academic leader of the archaeological project since 2016. 30 teachers and students of SCU have participated in the excavation at Zhaoguodong over the past five years, and they have made important achievements.

The Zhaoguodong Relics Site is about 8 meters thick. The relics date back to the period of 44,000 to 10,000 years ago, spanning the whole late Paleolithic and Neolithic periods. There are many fire relics in the site, and nearly 100,000 artifacts have been unearthed, which include more than 300 pieces of exquisitely processed bone artifacts, tombs, pottery pieces, and ground stone tools around 10,000 years old . Being a prehistoric cave site with the largest number of polished bone and horn implements, the richest fire remains, the earliest whole body polished stone tools and one of the earliest burials in southern China, it provides valuable information for the study of the late Pleistocene human evolution and diffusion, paleo Neolithic transition and other academic issues of international concern in southern China.

Being sponsored by the National Cultural Heritage Administration and the Society for Chinese Archaeology, the "Top Ten New Chinese Archaeological Discoveries" has aroused great attention from the academic circles, the general public and local governments. It is dubbed the "Oscar" of Chinese archaeology.

Section of the Zhaoguodong Relics Site

The excavation site

The outside of the relics site

Excavation site

The Chinese names begin with family name in this report.