Kevin McSpadden

The past 12 months have been a banner year in Chinese archaeology and palaeontology.

From finding a potential ancient human relative to an “alien civilisation”, some of the most exciting scientific breakthroughs in 2021 involved China.

They helped us learn more about our world long before humans roamed the Earth and told us fascinating stories about where we came from.

Here are eight of the most interesting Chinese archaeology and palaeontology finds for 2021.

The wonderful ruins of Sanxingdui

One of the most remarkable archaeological sites worldwide is the Sanxingdui ruins in central China’s Sichuan province.

Before this year, the site had already revealed incredible artefacts from what experts believe was the Shu civilisation. These bronze-age people had been a myth before the discovery of Sanxingdui.

This year, the world was awed when archaeologists revealed a stunning golden mask that had many people buzzing that it once belonged to aliens, which scientists were quick to dismiss.

Six months later, a better-preserved mask of similar style was revealed to the public, along with a treasure trove of other artefacts.

Finding the ‘Dragon Man’

Technically, the skull that would be nicknamed “Dragon Man” was discovered in 1933, but the person who found it did not think it was overly special, and the skull was reburied for 85 years.

This year, using the same skull, archaeologists announced what they believe is a new species of an archaic human called Homo longi.

Scientists think the species’ brain would have been the same size as Homo sapiens, but the skull has larger eye sockets, a thick mouth and overgrown teeth.

The announcement is not without debate, as many scientists think it might be a Denisova hominins, a previously identified extinct species of human.

Regardless, the skull does provide a lot of evidence that the development of modern humans was not a simple linear evolutionary path but likely involved significant crossbreeding between the species.

Descendants of a primitive Asian population

New research suggests the 4,000-year-old naturally embalmed mummies found in Xinjiang in northwest China were direct descendants of Ancient North Eurasians, an ancient people that had a large footprint in the region.

The paper dispelled theories that they had migrated from Afghanistan, Siberia and central Asian mountains. The mummies were excavated between 1979 and 2017.

These people probably died naturally and were preserved by the arid climate in Xinjiang, allowing scientists to use DNA analysis to pinpoint their ancestors.

Will we find dinosaur DNA soon?

A team of scientists found well-preserved cartilage cells that included an image of a nucleus in a birdlike dinosaur called Caudipteryx.

The nucleus contained “fossilised threads of chromatin”, raising the tantalising possibility that palaeontologists could one day find the remains of dinosaur DNA.

Before this study, palaeontologists had believed that it would be improbable to find fossilised dinosaur DNA because it is too fragile to survive for hundreds of millions of years.

Finding the possible source of the world’s first coins

Archaeologists in central China found a mint that they believe may be the spot where people produced humanity’s first coins.

While the mint itself is long gone, the team found a pit filled with the industrial waste produced by coin production.

If correct, the discovery would mean people began producing coins about a century before initially thought. Currently, the world’s oldest mint was found in the Kingdom of Lydia in what is now western Turkey.

The mint in Lydia is thought to have run sometime between 619BC and 560BC, while the one discovered in central China’s Henan province is estimated to have begun operating between 640BC and 550BC.

Do the Turkish and Japanese languages share a common ancestor?

New research published this year points to the possibility that the founding language of what would eventually split into a distinct group of five diverse tongues originally came from what is now northwest China.

The scientists said genetic, archaeological and linguistic analysis points to the fact that the five Transeurasian languages – Mongolian, Turkish, Tungusic, Japanese and Korean – originated in millet farmers in the Liao valley.

However, the relationship between Transeurasian languages is a source of intense debate, and many scientists hesitate to include Japanese and Korean in the language family.

A bird, oh wait, dinosaur, in an egg

It is widely accepted that modern birds are the descendants of dinosaurs, but the recent discovery of a fossilised embryo solidified the theory.

‘Baby Yingliang’ is the first discovery of a non-avian dinosaur that shares the developmental pattern of birds, notably with its head positioned below its body in the egg and its feet resting on both sides.

The team wrote that this characteristic, called tucking, suggests a strong connection between birds and theropods, the group of dinosaurs that includes the Tyrannosaurus rex.

The fossil is between 66 and 72 million years old and was found in southeastern China.

Rediscovering an emperor

For nearly 1,000 years, Chinese people had believed Emperor Wen, the fifth ruler of the Han dynasty, was buried somewhere in a mountain named the Phoenix’s Mouth outside Xian. It turned out that the actual tomb lay a few kilometres away.

Called Emperor Wen’s Ba Mausoleum, the pyramid-shaped resting place had long been covered by the shifting environment over the centuries, making it hard to pinpoint as a unique archaeological site.

The site started to receive attention when artefacts discovered in the area were of exceptionally high quality for the time.

Emperor Wen is well-received in Chinese history and is considered a leader who oversaw a period of stability and economic growth.