More than 500 pieces of relics    1    (discover) in recent months at the legendary Sanxingdui Ruins site in Southwest China’s Sichuan province, dazzling archaeologists with their historical value as well as the display of creativity.

The relics, discovered at the six new sacrificial pits of the ruins, include golden masks, jade and ivory artifacts and bronze wares    2    were delicately built and    3    (unique) shaped, said the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Heritage Administration.

The new finds bring the total number of items discovered at Sanxingdui to nearly 2,000    4    the excavation (挖掘) of No.3 to No.8 sacrificial pits began in October last year.

“The new discoveries demonstrate once again that    5    (imagine) and creativity of the ancient Chinese far surpassed    6    people today have expected,” said Tang Fei, chief of the Sichuan Provincial Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute.

Tang added that the excavation of the new pits has entered a critical stage,    7    more items yet to be unearthed and expected to challenge the    8    (convention) wisdom of archaeologists.

Originally discovered in the late 1920s, the Sanxingdui Ruins have been referred to as one of the world’s greatest archaeological finds of the 20th century.

Located in the city of Guanghan, around 60 km from the provincial capital Chengdu, the ruins covering    9    area of 12 square km are believed to be the remains of the Shu Kingdom,    10    (date) back some 4,500 to 3,000 years.

The discovery of the Yangshao village site in Sanmenxia, Henan province, in 1921, marked     1     birth of modern Chinese archaeology(考古学). In the past century, many generations of Chinese archaeologists     2     (make) fruitful findings across the country.

On October 18, the National Cultural Heritage Administration announced the top 100 archacological discoveries in China in the past 100 years     3     the opening ceremony of the third Chinese Archacology Congress in Sanmenxia.

In addition to the Yangshao site, many names familiar to the general public     4     (include) on the list. Among them are the Sanxingdui bronze civilization site in Sichuan, the mausoleum(陵墓)of Qinshihuang in Shaanxi,    5     the Zhoukoudian site in Beijing     6     the famous Peking Man skull(头骨)fossil was discovered.

“It provides great     7     (inspire) for Chinese scholars,    8     (build) their confidence. It also fills them with     9     (nation) pride.” Chen Xingcan, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences’ Institute of Archacology, told China Daily.

“The last 100 years’ archacological research in China has     10     (true) changed our understanding of a global and human story,” said British archacolopy professor Ian Hodder.

4 . Many people today think of the pyramids of Giza as the symbol of ancient Egyptian culture. But who actually built them? For years, we did not know for sure. Now, however, archaeologists have discovered an ancient city near the pyramids. Close by, there is a cemetery (墓地) where the pyramid builders were buried. From studying these places, archaeologists are sure that the pyramids were not built by slaves or foreigners.    1    

It took about 80 years to build the pyramids. Archaeologists believe that about 20,000-30,000 people took part in the construction.     2     Some dug up the rock, some moved it, and some shaped it into blocks. People also worked on different teams, each with its own name. Workers often competed to see whose team could do a job faster.

“We can see that in their skeletons(骨骼),” says Azza Mohamed Sarry El-Din, a scientist studying bones found in the cemetery. According to her research, the bones show signs of arthritis (关节炎)．    3     Archaeologists have also found many female skeletons in the ancient city and cemetery. The damage to their bones is similar to that of the men.    4     Male workers generally lived to age 40-45, but women to only 30-35. However, workers usually had enough food, and they also received medical care if they got sick or hurt.

    5     On a wall in Khufu's Great Pyramid, for example, a group of workers wrote Friends of Khufu. “It's because they were not just building the tomb of their king,” says Egyptian archaeologist Zahi Hawass. “They were building Egypt. It was a national project, and everyone was a part.”

8 . Born into poverty on 21 May 1799, Mary Anning had to work hard from a young age. Her parents had 10 children, of whom only two survived childhood --- Mary and her elder brother Joseph. Mary’s own survival was said by her parents to be a wonder. At the age of 15 months, a sudden rainstorm hit the shelter, where Mary, her babysitter, and two children stayed. A lightning strike killed them all except Mary.

She didn’t have formal education and was only taught to read at a Sunday school. Raised in the seaside holiday village of Lyme Regis in Dorset, Mary and Joseph made a living by selling fossils to holidaymakers at their father’s waterfront booth.

Her life changed in 1811 when Joseph noticed bones mixed together with rock. Unknown to them, this was the first ever discovery of an ichthyosaurus ( 鱼 龙 ), a marine lizard from the Triassic period. Anning noted down every find she made, and after failing to find any new fossils for over a year, in 1821 she made her next discovery, digging up three more ichthyosaur skeletons. This was followed two years later by an even more impressive find --- a complete plesiosaur(蛇颈龙). This was so extraordinary that many leading scientists declared it a counterfeit, unwilling to believe that an uneducated 24-year-old could find such remarkable remains. Additionally, society at the time was highly religious and many rejected these discoveries as they conflicted with the teachings of the Bible.

Despite the setback, Anning continued to make more shocking revelations. Anning also dug up fossilized shit, which made experts know the diets of prehistoric creatures. But her biggest find of all was the first complete skeleton of a pterosaur in 1828.

All of Mary Anning’s discoveries helped influence the study of paleontology(古生物学) as scientists began to take an increased interest in fossilized animals and plants. Her work also encouraged people to question the history of the Earth in more detail and encouraged girls and those from poor backgrounds by proving that they could succeed in scientific study, a profession mainly controlled by wealthy upper-class men.

9 . Archaeologists(考古学家) have recently identified the oldest known human burial in Africa during field work, which uncovered the remains of a child laid carefully to rest in a grave(墓穴) nearly 80,000 years ago.

Researchers discovered the delicate and degraded bones while excavating(挖掘) the floor at the mouth of the Panga ya Saidi cave in the tropical uplands of Kenya's coastal plain about 10 miles from the shore. The team unearthed the edge of the grave and the first pieces of bone in 2013, but the bones were so fragile that they turned to dust when the scientists tried to remove them. Over the next four years, the researchers excavated the grave from above, discovering yet more bones, but even after applying some special material, it was still too weak to recover.

The researchers decided to dig around the circular pit, roughly 40cm wide and 13cm deep, and encase the whole grave in plaster(石 膏) so it could safely be lifted from the ground. The block was taken to the National Museum in Nairobi and on to a specialist lab in Spain where the material was excavated further and then imaged with 3D X-ray equipment. The images show that the child was laid on their right side with knees tied towards the chest. The bones had not fallen apart in the grave, leading the researchers to suspect the body was wrapped tightly before burial. Dating found the bones to be about 78,000 years old, according to the study published in Nature.

Archaeologists have also found age-old human burial sites outside Africa. Human remains recovered from burials in the Skhul cave on the slopes of Mount Carmel in Israel and Qafzeh cave near Nazareth are between 90,000 and 130,000 years old.