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'Earliest writing' found in China By Paul Rincon BBC Science First attempt at writing .. on a tortoise shell Signs carved into 8,600-year-old tortoise shells found in China may be the earliest written words, say archaeologists. The symbols were written down in the late Stone Age, or Neolithic Age. They predate the earliest recorded writings from Mesopotamia - in what is now Iraq - by more than 2,000 years. The archaeologists say they bear similarities to written characters used thousands of years later during the Shang dynasty, which lasted from 1700-1100 BC. But the discovery has already generated controversy, with...

Oldest noodles unearthed in China Late Neolithic noodles: They may settle the origin debate The 50cm-long, yellow strands were found in a pot that had probably been buried during a catastrophic flood. Radiocarbon dating of the material taken from the Lajia archaeological site on the Yellow River indicates the food was about 4,000 years old. Scientists tell the journal Nature that the noodles were made using grains from millet grass - unlike modern noodles, which are made with wheat flour. The discovery goes a long way to settling the old argument over who first created the string-like food. Professor Houyuan...

Sand-covered Huns city unearthed 10/08/2002 XI'AN: Chinese archaeologists recently discovered a unique, ancient city which has lain covered by desert sands for more than 1,000 years. It is the first ruined city of the Xiongnu (Huns) ever found, said Dai Yingxin, a well-known Chinese archaeologist. The Xiongnu was a nomadic ethnic group, who for 10 centuries were tremendously influential in northern China. The unearthed city occupies 1 square kilometre in Jingbian County, in Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, adjacent to the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region in the north of the country. It is believed that the city was built by more...

It had been thought that the deserts in northern China are one million years old, but a new study of the Hunshandake Sandy Lands of Inner Mongolia suggests that its desert is only 4,000 years old. Xiaoping Yang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Louis Scuderi of the University of New Mexico, and their colleagues examined the patterns of dunes and depressions in the region and lake sediments, and they dated quartz from the region with a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence. They found that Hunshandake had deep lakes and rivers beginning some 12,000 years ago. "We're amazed by...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 (Xinhua) -- The United States, Japan and India held their first trilateral dialogue here on Monday over a "wide range" of regional and global issues of common interest. "These discussions mark the beginning of a series of consultations among our three governments, who share common values and interests across the Asia-Pacific and the globe," the State Department said in a statement. Responding to the prevailing assumption that the meeting was aimed at containing China, Assistant Secretary Kurt Campbell dismissed the idea as "preposterous." Campbell said they would discuss at the event a number of issues, including "larger...

China has announced $1 billion in funding to help farmers fight the country's devastating droughts, according to The Guardian. The country is facing its worst drought in 60 years right where it hurts the most, the wheat producing province of Shangdong.

(ZHENGZHOU, China) — The Yellow River has traditionally been called "China's sorrow" and for Li Xiaoqiang, the grief strikes particularly close to home. As a senior official with the Yellow River Conservancy Commission, Li observes -- up close and on a daily basis -- the gradual deterioration of China's second-largest waterway. "The Yellow River is still in a pretty bad state," he told AFP, sitting in his sparsely furnished office in Zhengzhou, a major central Chinese industrial city on the river. "The water levels are going down and water usage is going up, pollution is very serious, so it is...

DONGYANG (Zhejiang) - Following breast milk banquets in the southern city of Changsha comes news that children's urine is being used to cook eggs in eastern China. The Chinese Business View reported that residents in Dongyang City of Zhejiang province believed eggs cooked in the urine of young boys were nourishing. It said people were queuing with washbasins in hand outside every primary school. Some even turned to the principals or teachers to help them collect the urine. A check by the Chinese-language newspaper at one primary school found washbasins were placed in the boys' toilets. A principal said some...