38(38/0) 
Archaeologists have discovered an ancient human skull in China, dating back to 80,000 to 100,000 years, which may shed light on a shadowy chapter of evolutionary history. The finding was made by an excavation team led by Chinese archaeologist Li Zhanyang in the central province of Henan. According to National Geographic News, a report from the Chinese government earlier suggested that the fossil came from a modern human, which would have forced a radical reworking of current theories about when our species first left Africa. But, experts have said that the skull likely belongs to a sister or precursor species to modern humans. While still too early to judge the skull"s true significance, it hails from a pivotal evolutionary period, when modern-day humans beganto supplant the ancestral human species Homo erectus.
According to experts, the discovery raises the chances that the two species may have overlapped for some time in China, possibly interbreeding and sharing tools. "The skull shows characteristics of both archaic humans and of Homo sapiens," said Li. "If this is a "modern" Homo sapiens, with a high rounded skull, divided browridge, and chin, and is 80,000 to 100,000 years old, then it would indicate a very early dispersal of moderns eastwards from Africa and the Middle East," said Chris Stringer, a research leader in the Human Origins Program at the Natural History Museum in London. But according to Stringer, the fossil is much more likely to be that of an earlier species. Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, offered a similar assessment after viewing photos of theHenan skull. "Based on the anatomy of the skull, with its large projecting browridge, this appears to be close to Peking Man," he said. The "Peking Man"ť refers to a series of half-million-year-old skulls belonging to Homo erectus, which were found in a massive cave on the outskirts of Beijing in the 1920s and 1930s. Experts have said that the discovery of the older Henan skull is important because it increases the possibility that archaic and modern humans coexisted for a time in China, just as they did in Europe.
View: Full Article | Source: Top News
Views : 506
View: 
The story of the White Pyramid came about in the 1940s, when eyewitness reports, specifically from pilot James Gaussman, related the presence of an enormous “White Pyramid” near the Chinese city of Xi’an. If true, it was bigger than the Great Pyramid of Giza. The region was off-limits to Western tourists for many decades afterwards and once this restriction was lifted, many pyramids were found, but the gigantic “White Pyramid” was not amongst them. A photograph of what was believed to be the White Pyramid, turned out to be one of a much smaller pyramid near Xi’an.So what was the White Pyramid? Had someone overestimated the dimensions of a smaller pyramid? The answer is a simple no. The photograph had nothing to do with the original account of the White Pyramid, and this is where the main problem has lain in recent years. The actual White Pyramid is Liangshan Mountain and it is as big as Gaussman and others had claimed it was. Liangshan Mountain is located in the vicinity of Qiang Xian, a small Chinese town located 80 km to the northwest from Xi’an. In 684 AD, the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty Gaozong was buried at the bottom of the mountain with his wife the Empress Wu. She reigned after Gaozong’s death. When she died in 705 AD, her body was buried near Gaozong’s on Liangshan Mountain. It is the only mausoleum where two Tang monarchs were buried.The Qianling mausoleum incorporates 17 attendant tombs, including the tombs of Princess Yongtai, Prince Zhanghuai and Prince Yide. Twenty stone sculptures guard the emperor and his wife from evil spirits and enemies. They line the way to the burial place, guarding it with unusual long swords. Behind the guards there is a reconstructed gate, built from clay, but finished with bricks. Next are two large statues of mythical monsters. Building the mausoleum and the inner chambers was an enormous accomplishment, but my research is primarily focused on the mountain where the emperor was buried, as this is the legendary White Pyramid. Liangshan is listed as a natural mountain that consists of three peaks. The two southern peaks are approximately the same size, but the northern peak is much taller and bigger. The two southern peaks consist of soil (so-called “central Chinese clay. 
The Great Wall of China is even greater than once thought. A two-year government mapping study has uncovered new sections of the ancient Chinese monument which makes it more than 2,551 kilometres (1,585 miles) longer. The Ming Dynasty Great Wall is 8,851.8 kilometres (5,500 miles) long, said the State Administration of Cultural Heritage and the State Bureau of Surveying and Mapping.
