Wangfujing Paleolithic Cultural Relics Museum

Wangfujing Paleolithic Cultural Relics Museum is located on the third basement level of the First Street of Oriental Plaza, Wangfujing Street, Dongcheng District, Beijing. On December 14, 1996, Yue Shengyang, a scholar from Peking University, discovered black carbon traces, animal bone fragments, and man-made stone flakes at a construction site in Wangfujing. After being identified by experts from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the site was confirmed to be a late Paleolithic site dating back 15,000–26,000 years. The site is 12 meters below the surface, and the gray-brown ancient cultural layer indicates that ancient humans once lived and resided in the Wangfujing area. This is another major discovery of ancient human remains in Beijing after Zhoukoudian, and it is also the first time in the world that such an ancient human cultural site has been discovered in the center of an international metropolis. It fills the gap of no Paleolithic sites in the plains and is a valuable resource for studying ancient human tool making, lifestyle, survival ability, and restoring the ecological environment of Beijing at that time. In order to protect this precious historical and cultural site and showcase Beijing's long history and culture, the People's Government of Dongcheng District, Beijing and Mr. Li Ka-shing jointly invested in the construction of the Wangfujing Paleolithic Cultural Relics Museum. The central site of the museum is a soil layer 12 meters below the ground, which preserves the remains of ancient humans after lighting bonfires, such as carbon ash pits and carbon debris layers, and the site where ancient humans slaughtered and dismembered animals, such as the site square rich in bone fragments.