Posted on 06/20/2005 7:34:51 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Chinese archaeologists said Tuesday that they found remains of 30 kinds of plants dating back 8,000 years in east China's Shandong province.
The remains were found near the construction site of an international exposition center in the coastal city of Qingdao.
Zhang Zhigang, expert with China Paleontology Society, said a team of archaeologists had been digging for ancient plant remains since the end of last year when they first found remains of a 10-cm-long reed at the site. He said the discovery is a breakthrough and will provide evidence for human evolution research.
The 30 kinds of plant remains include oak leaves, Siberian cocklebur, water nut and something similar to rice, Zhang said. Zhang said that some remains had a rare orange or brownish luster when excavated.
Zhang said that finding a large number of well-preserved ancient plant remains in China is rare. The discovery will shed some light on environmental changes 8,000 years ago that eventually led to human evolution.
Zhang said the discovery was also helpful to understanding the geology and climate in ancient times, as well as a study of the human activities related to climate change.
Source: Xinhua
Ping!
I am deeply sceptical of any antiquities, fossils, or anything else of that nature that comes out of China.
Fakes are indemic and cheating foreigners is big business.
PT Barnum was right.
It's particularly bothersome because hard sciences are typically pretty low-pay, low-prestige, etc., and done for the love of the science.
When you have dishonest profiteers come in and profit at the expense of your credibility, it must be particularly heinous.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on, off, or alter the "Gods, Graves, Glyphs" PING list --
Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
The GGG Digest -- Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)
Garbage du jour from the ChiCom kitchen.
Am I the only one who noticed something wrong here?
Nope, I caught it as well. They don't seem to be using the same timeline as most Western scientists.
Why were they not decomposed? It must have been a waterlogged site, as Shandong is on the coast and not particularly dry.
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