At the Nihewan Basin in Yangyuan County, Hebei
Province, 21 Paleolithic sites dating back more than 1 million
years are scattered along both sides of the Sanggan River. The
Nihewan Ruins, now under state protection, are listed among China's
top 100 archeological discoveries in the 20th century.?
Wei Qi, from the Chinese Academy
of Sciences' Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and
Paleoanthropology (IVPP), has devoted himself to Paleolithic
research at the Nihewan Basin for more than 30 years. Most
scientists believe that human life originated in Africa 2.4 to 2.5
million years ago; findings from Nihewan indicate that our
ancestors inhabited this area 2 million years ago, making Nihewan
the likely "cradle of humanity" in East Asia, according to Wei.
In spite of their value, Chinese archeologists are confronted
with a seemingly insurmountable challenge in preserving the Nihewan
Ruins.
"There is no way to implement the protection plan made a couple
of years ago. This is our biggest headache," complains Xie Fei,
vice director of Hebei Provincial Cultural Relics Bureau and head
of the Research Institute of Nihewan Culture.
Xie says that at a working conference held on February 4, 2002,
a task force was established and put in charge of Nihewan's
preservation. Twelve protection and excavation projects were
proposed at the meeting, including road construction, tree planting
and landscape engineering. The provincial Construction Department,
along with the Land and Resources Department, Water Conservancy
Department, Cultural Relics Bureau, Forestry Bureau and Tourism
Bureau, helped to map out a comprehensive protection program.
Unfortunately, as grand as the plans sounded, they all turned
out to be castles in the air.
Blueprints for the Nihewan Museum have been drafted and
redrafted, but it is taking an unconscionably long time to complete
the building that, according to the original plan, would cover an
area of 4,500 square meters with an investment of 15 million yuan
(US$1.8 million).
With more than 10,000 unearthed objects that have no place else
to go, some are on display in a room borrowed from the Yangyuan
County's People's Armed Forces Department while most of the others
are kept in a storage area that offers poor conditions for
preservation. Worse, the place is a fire hazard, and if something
untoward happened the losses would be irrecoverable.
"In the 2002–2003 period, the provincial government reportedly
allocated 5 million yuan (about US$604,000) for the construction of
the museum. But nobody knows where the money is," said Xie.
The IVPP's Zhang Senshui, a leading paleoarcheologist, has on
several occasions demanded that the authorities take steps to
protect the prehistoric sites at Nihewan, especially the elephant
footprints found at Majuangou. In a letter to the State
Administration of Cultural Heritage, Zhang also pleaded that the
Houjiayao site, which is endangered by severe riverbank erosion, be
put on the agenda.
"The provincial Construction Department's original proposal
included very detailed descriptions," says Xie. "Since nobody
wanted to take on that work, a very important plan was simply
pigeonholed in a shameful way."
Wei Qi points out that the Nihewan Ruins are exposed to all
kinds of weather and could be destroyed by flash flooding at any
time. Earlier this year, a heavy downpour caused portions of a
cliff at the Donggutuo site to collapse.
Building dams and digging culverts are good ways to conserve
water and reduce erosion. But even these basic measures have not
been taken at most sites in the basin.
Adding insult to the high risk of injury, despite the protection
plan that strictly forbids the construction of any plants that may
cause pollution in the basin, not long ago a safety lamp
manufacturer opened shop in Datianwa village, near the Donggutuo
site.
"They said that the owner had been forced to move his factory, a
serious polluter, from Shanxi
Province to this area," says Wei indignantly. "Opening a
factory can make some immediate profits; but leaving the pollution
unchecked -- there will be the devil to pay."
"We need to draw on the experience of the United States in
protecting its Native American ruins," advises Yuan Jiarong of the
Hunan Culture and Archeology Institute. "In their view, protection
is of utmost importance for historical relics. However, in China
local governments often put economic development before
preservation. The government should play a bigger role in this
regard."
Lack of funding is the main reason the Nihewan ruins are at
risk, according to Cheng Shengquan, head of the Yangyuan County
Historical Relics Preservation Station. "The Xiaochangliang site is
under state protection, but the state has never invested a penny in
protecting it. Even the erection of the site's monument was
sponsored by the provincial Cultural Relics Bureau."
"Since the 1920s Chinese and foreign archeologists have
conducted in-depth studies of the Nihewan Ruins, with abundant
results," Xie said. "We still have a lot to do in Nihewan, such as
searching for early hominid fossils, which I believe is only a
matter of time. Obviously, if we do a poor protection job here, all
the archeologists' efforts would turn out to be meaningless."
(China.org.cn by Shao Da, December 19, 2004)
