On February 19, 2025, the ‘2024 Archaeological Forum of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences New Archaeological Discoveries in China’ , hosted by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and undertaken by the Institute of Archaeology of the academy was held in Beijing, which revealed the selected projects, awarded projects and foreign new projects in 2024. The Dadong Paleolithic Site in Helong City, Jilin Province was awarded as one of the ‘2024 Six New Archaeological Discoveries in China’. The project, was jointly undertaken by the Faculty of History of Liaoning University. Professor Xu Ting from the School of Archaeology and Culture of the faculty was the project leader.
From 2021 to now, Professor Xu Ting as the project leader has been conducting active archaeological excavations for four consecutive years. With the help of different teams, he has exposed nine cultural horizons and unearthed more than 20,000 stone products and animal fossils, confirming that the age of the site is 50,000-15,000 years ago. The newly discovered evidence showed the earliest utilization of obsidian raw materials, the earliest technology of pressing fine stone leaves, conscious grinding of stone tools, symbolic sculptures and the use of stone circle relics and animal bones that may be related to ancient human habitation in Northeast Asia.
Dadong Paleolithic Site in Helong City in Jilin Province
Dadong Paleolithic Site is located in Dadong Village, Chongshan Town, Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in Jilin Province. It is located on the basalt lava platform where the Tumen River and Hongqi River meet at the eastern foot of Changbai Mountain with a distribution area of over four square kilometers and a core area of about 500,000 square meters.
Dadong Paleolithic Site is the largest wild site in Northeast Asia. It has the earliest and clearest cultural sequence of the Late Paleolithic in Changbai Mountain area of China and even Northeast Asia. It is the earliest site to develop and utilize obsidian raw materials in Northeast Asia.
The archaeological discovery of Dadong Paleolithic Site constantly refreshes the original cognition of the production and lifestyle of the ancient people in Northeast Asia in the late Paleolithic period and also enriches the culture of Changbai Mountain area and even the whole East Asia in the late Paleolithic period. It is of great value for discussing the key academic issues such as the evolution and interaction of prehistoric culture in Northeast Asia, population diffusion and environmental adaptation and the origin of fine stone leaf technology. It is a world-class important discovery of paleolithic archaeology in East Asia in recent years.
On September 28, 2023, National Cultural Heritage Administration held a meeting on the important progress of the ‘Archaeological China’ projects, where four important archaeological achievements were reported, including the Dadong Paleolithic Site in Helong City in Jilin Province. In the same year, it was rated as one of the top ten archaeological news in China by CCTV in 2023 and was selected as an important archaeological discovery of National Cultural Heritage Administration in 2023. This new discovery once again highlighted the value of the archaeological discovery of Dadong Paleolithic Site and the team strength of the archaeological discipline of Liaoning University.
Brief introduction of Xu Ting
Xu Ting was born in 1988 in Jilin Province. He graduated from Jilin University with a bachelor’s degree in archaeology and a diploma in history. He graduated from the Chinese Academy of Sciences with a master’s degree in archaeology and a Ph.D. in history. He worked in Jilin Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology and Hangzhou City University. Starting from 2023, he has worked at Liaoning University. Currently he is a full-time teacher, a professor and master’s supervisor at the School of Archaeology and Culture.
His research fields are Paleolithic Archaeology and Koguryo Bohai Archaeology. He is now a member of the Paleolithic Professional Committee of China Archaeological Society, Secretary of the Archaeological China Project and a member of the National Archaeological Talents Revitalization Project Team. He has presided over one youth project, one key project and one sub-project of major projects of the National Social Science Fund. He has also presided over a number of archaeological excavations and archaeological investigations of important sites such as Mountain City at Bawangchao Village, Mountain City at Mopan Village, Dadong Paleolithic Site in Helong City and Fenglin Site in Fusong County. He has published more than 40 academic papers in important journals at home and abroad, such as Antiquity, Lithic Technology, JASR, Archaeology, Archaeology and Cultural Relics and Acta Anthropologica Sinica. He has also delivered more than 20 academic reports at home and abroad.
