Human Skull Fossils from Yunxian County

In 1989 and 1990, two skull fossils were discovered at the Xuetangliangzi site at the mouth of the Quyuan River in Qingqu Town, Yunxian County, Hubei Province. They have a complete braincase and a largely intact facial skeleton. They are classified as Homo erectus, commonly referred to as the “Yunxian Man.”

The discovery of “Yunxian Man” is of extraordinary significance. In terms of the comprehensiveness and richness of its fossil remains, along with the breadth of scholarly questions they address, it ranks only behind the Zhoukoudian “Peking Man.” It has attracted widespread attention from the global paleoanthropological community and serves as important physical evidence for rewriting human development history.