"The 3,000-year-old tombs of a wealthy clan, including the remains of warriors and warhorses that seem to have been sacrificed at their funerals, have been unearthed in an ancient capital city of China." Source: Live Science.
"The complex of 24 tombs was discovered at an archaeological site within the city of Anyang in Henan province, less than 2 miles (2.4 km) from the UNESCO World Heritage archaeological site of Yinxu at the city's center. The ruins there are from the ancient city of Yin, the capital of the Shang dynasty, which ruled between about 1600 B.C. to 1046 B.C. — the earliest dynasty ever recorded in China.
"The newfound tomb complex includes several pits that hold war chariots, the remains of horses that drew them and the remains of warriors. Some of the warriors were wearing hats decorated with strings of shells when they died, while the foreheads of some of the horses were decorated with gold veneer and a bronze backing, according to a statement [Chinese language only with lots of pictures] from the government's Xinhua news agency."
Note: There is evidence that ritual suicides and voluntary live burials were conducted at this and other Shang dynasty sites:
According to a Penn State study, "A sizable portion of the oracle bones uncovered in Shang archaeological sites contain script specifically concerning human sacrifice ...These written records are also corroborated by the discovery of numerous sacrificial mass-graves in those sites. In most Shang sacrificial rituals, only animals and valuable chattels (such as bronze wares) would be used as offerings. There were only two exceptional circumstances where human sacrifices were made: xunzang 殉葬 and renji 人祭. Xunzang 殉葬 (lit. 'burial sacrifice') refers to the practice in which personal slaves and servants of Shang king, upon their master’s death, were expected to commit ritual suicide or to 'volunteer' themselves to be buried alive alongside with their master. While the practice of committing ritual suicide upon the master’s death has lingered throughout Chinese history, the second type of human sacrifice, renji 人祭 (lit. 'human offering sacrifice') is practiced only during the Shang dynasty period, and also the most massive in scale in terms of number of people killed in a typical renji ceremony."
"A 4,300-year-old city, which has a massive step pyramid that is at least 230 feet (70 meters) high and spans 59 acres (24 hectares) at its base, has been excavated in China, archaeologists reported in the August issue of the journal Antiquity." Source: Live Science.(2018)
"The remains of numerous human sacrifices have been discovered at Shimao [the name given to the city]. 'In the outer gateway of the eastern gate on the outer rampart alone, six pits containing decapitated human heads have been found,' the archaeologists wrote."
Comment: This theory is speculative, but the idea that Roman soldiers ended up in China isn't totally implausible. The general scenario of how it could have happened goes like this:
In 53 BC, the Roman politician and general Marcus Crassus (115-53 BC) was killed at the Battle of Carrhae when he led his army into a trap during his ill-advised invasion of Parthia, an empire which bordered on China:
This map shows the location of Parthia when it was part of the Median Empire around 600 BC. Parthia is in the upper part of the yellow region just to the right of the Caspian Sea.
Crassus' invasion of Parthia was a complete disaster:
"In a slaughter known as the battle of Carrhae the Romans lost nearly their entire army and Crassus was killed. [The story is that the Parthians captured Crassus, the richest man in Rome, and executed him by pouring molten gold down his throat.] The remaining 10,000 or so Roman legionaries were captured." Source: War History Online.
The Parthians apparently used their Roman prisoners as border guards along the eastern frontiers:
"The Parthians had a standard practice of employing captured soldiers as border guards. By transferring the 10,000 legionaries to the eastern borders they prevented any realistic chance of escape for the Romans who likely would have simply accepted their new lot in life. Record of the soldiers vanish for about 17 years when the battle of Zhizhi was fought as a Chinese army under Chen Tang assaulted a border town known today as Taraz, located in Kazakhstan near the border of Kyrgyzstan." (War History Online)
According to the story, some of these former Roman soldiers and Parthian border guards fought as mercenaries at the battle of Zhizhi. They were either captured or defected to the Chinese, who were impressed by their fighting abilities and -- like the Parthians -- stationed them in a border town to guard the frontier:
"Anywhere from 100 to 1,000 or more soldiers established themselves in this town that was known by the Chinese as Liqian/Li-Jien, which is pronounced as 'legion'." (War History Online) "...It seems these Romans lived peacefully in Liqian, and 2,000 years later we have DNA evidence that over 50% of the villagers in modern day Liqian have Caucasian ancestry including green and blue eyes, increased average height and other distinguishing characteristics such as distinctly Roman noses."
If this story is true, then these Roman soldiers who fought under Crassus at Carrhae (and their descendants) had an extremely wild and strange destiny, to say the least. But is the story true?
First of all, there's no doubt that the inhabitants of the region of Liqian, China, have some kind of European ancestry. According to Wikipedia, "The area of the former Liqian city is known for the distinctive physical appearance of its inhabitants. The population has higher frequencies of traits prevalent in Europe, such as aquiline noses, blonde or light-colored hair, blue or green eyes, and relatively fair skin tones."
Who were these Europeans and where did they come from? The idea that they were Roman soldiers or their descendants isn't all that farfetched, but it's still controversial:
"A hypothesis by the sinologist Homer H. Dubs, according to which Roman legionaries clashed with Han troops during the battle and were resettled afterwards in a Chinese village named Liqian, has been rejected by modern historians and geneticists on the grounds of a critical appraisal of the ancient sources and recent DNA testings of the village people. However, this hypothesis has been supported by prominent scholars like Lev Gumilev."
It's possible that the people of Liqian are descended from Caucasoid Indo-Europeans who were living in the region long before the Romans went to war with Parthia:
You can always trust the experts to mess up a good story, but I've got to admit that some of these Chinese do look like they have Roman ancestry. The people in Liqian are trying to use their supposed relationship with the Romans to boost their tourism industry and who can blame them? Whether the story is true or not is a different matter altogether.
"Much like modern humans, the Neanderthals roamed widely throughout Europe. We know because they left behind extensive evidence, usually bones or tools.
"But their cousins, the Denisovans, are more mysterious. Until recently, they were conclusively linked only to a single cave in southern Siberia, called Denisova Cave, between Kazakhstan and Mongolia. There, scientists had found a finger bone, three teeth, and a piece of skull, which tipped them off to the existence of a whole new lineage of ancient human.
"Now, scientists have uncovered more of the range of the Denisovans, says Diyendo Massilani of the Max Planck Institute in Germany. His team turned up evidence the ancient humans occupied a high-mountain cave on the Tibetan plateau, called Baishiya cave." Source: Scientific American (Dec. 2020).
"The Great Wall of China — built over the course of two millennia to bolster China's northern frontier — is made of several overlapping walls that run parallel to each other. Collectively, they stretch over 13,000 miles (21,000 kilometers) — more than half the circumference of Earth. But did these extensive walls, with an average height of 25.6 feet (7.8 meters), actually protect China against the outside world?" Source: Live Science.
"The answer largely depends on how you define the wall's successes and failures. The Chinese built the wall as a masterpiece of defensive architecture, and while Chinese troops controlling these barriers certainly helped to thwart the attacks of some would-be invaders, the Great Wall was by no means impenetrable. In other words, sometimes it helped protect China, and other times it didn't."
Comment: Defensive walls have several weaknesses. They can be circumvented in some cases -- invaders can simply walk around them -- or they can be scaled or knocked down with various siege weapons. Ultimately, though, walls are only as good as the people who are guarding them. In the case of the Great Wall of China, the Ming Dynasty (for example) was defeated by the Manchus when a Ming general who had formed an alliance with the Manchus simply opened the gates and let the invaders in:
"Towards the end of the Ming, the Great Wall helped defend the empire against the Manchu invasions that began around 1600. Even after the loss of all of Liaodong, the Ming army held the heavily fortified Shanhai Pass, preventing the Manchus from conquering the Chinese heartland. The Manchus were finally able to cross the Great Wall in 1644, after Beijing had already fallen to Li Zicheng's rebels. Before this time, the Manchus had crossed the Great Wall multiple times to raid, but this time it was for conquest. The gates at Shanhai Pass were opened on May 25 by the commanding Ming general, Wu Sangui, who formed an alliance with the Manchus, hoping to use the Manchus to expel the rebels from Beijing. The Manchus quickly seized Beijing, and eventually defeated both the rebel-founded Shun dynasty and the remaining Ming resistance, establishing the Qing dynasty rule over all of China." (Wikipedia)
"Longyou Caves is a complex of 24 artificial caves, constructed into the sandstone geology of Fenghuang Hill in the Zhejiang province of China." Source: Heritage Daily.
"The caves were discovered by accident in 1992, when local farmers drained several ponds revealing five large manmade caverns and 19 smaller caves.
"The five caverns, independent from each other measure between 18-34 metres [59-111 ft], reaching heights of up to 20 metres [65 ft] with supporting pillars and distinctive shapes remarkably curved with shaking imprints across the cavern walls and ceilings."
These chambers are really gigantic. According to Wikipedia, their average floor area is over 11,000 square feet and some of the caves are almost a hundred feet high in places.
Views of caves start at around 4:29.
"First discovered in 1992 by a local villager, 36 grottoes have now been discovered covering a massive 30,000 square metres. Carved into solid siltstone, each grotto descends around 30 metres [app. 98 ft] underground and contains stone rooms, bridges, gutters and pools. There are pillars evenly distributed throughout the caves which are supporting the ceiling, and the walls, ceiling and stone columns are uniformly decorated with chisel marks in a series of parallel lines. Only one of the caves has been opened for tourism, chosen because of the stone carvings found inside which depict a horse, fish and bird." (Ancient Origins)
These chambers date back to at least 200 BC and nobody knows how they were constructed. No tools have been discovered at the site. There are no signs of the huge amount of material that must have been excavated and the amount of manual labor required is mind-boggling:
"Taking into account the average digging rate per day per person, scientists have calculated that it would take 1,000 people working day and night for six years to complete. These calculations are based purely on hard labour, but what they haven’t taken into account is the incredible care and precision of the sculptors, meaning that the actual workload would far surpass the theoretical estimation. As for how they were constructed and what tools were used, it is still unknown." (Ancient Origins)
Next video (2017) discusses the possibility that the caves were built to serve as water reservoirs.
Everything about these caves is a mystery. We don't know who built them or why or how they worked in the dark. No one knows what the symbols carved on the walls and pillars mean. And it's unclear how the caves could be so well-preserved after thousands of years of submersion:
"One of the most interesting and challenging questions is how the caves have been able to keep their structural integrity for more than 2000 years. There are no signs of collapse, no piles of rubble, and no damage despite the fact that in some areas the walls are only 50 centimetres thick. Over the centuries, the area has gone through numerous floods, calamities and wars, the mountains have changed their appearance and exposed stones have been weathered, but inside the caves, the form, patterns and markings are still clear and precise – it is as though they were built yesterday. " (Ancient Origins)
Alternate-history researchers, naturally, point to the Longyou caves as evidence of ancient high technology and the extreme age of the human race.
"Shimao ... is a Neolithic site in Shenmu County, Shaanxi, China. The site is located in the northern part of the Loess Plateau, on the southern edge of the Ordos Desert. It is dated to around 2000 BC, near the end of the Longshan period [next video], and is the largest known walled site of that period in China, at 400 ha [app. 988 acres]. The fortifications [double stone walls] of Shimao were originally believed by to be a section of the Great Wall of China, but the discovery of jade pieces prompted an archaeological investigation." (Wikipedia)
This is a spectacular Stone-Age site. According to Archaeology World, "The digging had revealed a 230 feet high pyramid surrounded by more than six miles of protective walls and an inner sanctum containing jade artifacts, painted murals, and gruesome evidence of human sacrifice." Around 80 human skulls, mainly of young girls, were discovered buried in six pits beneath the city's eastern wall.
This isn't a recent find. According to a 2013 AFP report, the sacrifices may have been conducted as part of religious or foundation ceremonies related to the construction of the city walls:
"There may have been an outbreak of mass violence or ethnic conflict in the region at the time since 'ancient people were prone to use their enemies or captives as sacrifices...'"
Video from 2018. Shimao was discovered in 1976.
"Shimao now is the largest known Neolithic settlement in China and none of the ancient Chinese texts mentions a city residing so far north of the 'cradle of Chinese Civilization'. It had an expanse of [approximately] 1000 acres and is larger than the Central Park of New York City. Its art and technology had influenced the northern regions and the future dynasties of China." (Archaeology World)
"Along with other discoveries at prehistoric sites, Shimao is forcing historians to rethink the origin of the Chinese civilization.
"According to the leader of the dig at Shimao, 'Shimao is one of the most important archaeological discoveries of this century.'"
"Marijuana users have had many occasions to wonder where their much-beloved — yet much maligned — cannabis plant came from. They need wonder no more: New genetic research reveals that the pot plant has its roots in what is now northwest China, where local strains are most like the original strain of cannabis cultivated more than 12,000 years ago." Source: Live Science.
"The study — the largest ever of the whole genomes of cannabis plants, adding a further 82 genomes to the 28 that had already been sequenced — shows that cannabis was probably first domesticated in early Neolithic times in the region of modern China near its borders with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and from there spread as different varieties around the world."
"A near-perfectly preserved ancient human fossil known as the Harbin cranium sits in the Geoscience Museum in Hebei GEO University [in China]. The largest of Homo skulls, scientists now say this skull represents a newly discovered human species named Homo longi or 'Dragon Man.' Their findings suggest that the Homo longi lineage may be our closest relatives -- and may reshape our understanding of human evolution." Source: Science Daily.
"The cranium was reportedly discovered in the 1930s in Harbin City of the Heilongjiang province of China. The massive skull could hold a brain comparable in size to modern humans' but had larger, almost square eye sockets, thick brow ridges, a wide mouth, and oversized teeth." According to one Chinese researcher, the skull "presents a mosaic combination of primitive and derived characters setting itself apart from all the other previously-named Homo species."
The skull's history is kind of convoluted. First discovered in the 1930s, according to the NY Post, it "was then hidden for about 85 years to protect it from the Japanese army," only to be re-discovered at the bottom of a well in 2018. I'm not sure how it ended up in the well.
Despite all the publicity surrounding this find, there's a chance that "Dragon Man" may not be a new species at all. According to Wikipedia, the fossil is "broadly anatomically similar to other Middle Pleistocene Chinese specimens, and potentially represents the enigmatic Denisovans, though this is unconfirmed."