This is the famous Sanxingdui Ruins site, which is in Southwest China’s Sichuan province.

The Sanxingdui Ruins     1     (believe) to be the remnants(遗迹) of the Shu Kingdom, dating back some 5,000 to 3,000 years. Ancient city walls, palaces and many gold, ivory and bronze     2     (artifact) unearthed here     3     (true) proved the existence of the ancient Shu Kingdom and the diversity of Chinese civilization.

The     4     (culture) relics unearthed here look quite exotic. The most representative one is a bronze mask with protruding eyes. The mask is 66 centimeters in     5     (high)and 138 centimeters wide. Its weight is about 71.9 kilograms, similar to     6     of an adult man. It has upturned brows, almond eyes ,huge ears and a mysterious smile. It’s eyes stick out 16 centimeters, just like a telescope looking up at the sky.Its mysterious appearance has aroused heated discussion among researchers. The exaggerated eyes and ears reflect a desire of the ancient Shu people,     7     were unable to see or hear anything in the distance due to lack of necessary tools. Therefore, when making the bronze mask, they incorporated their wishes into the artifact,     8     (hope) to enhance their visual and auditory abilities.

Nowadays, the Sanxingdui Museum attracts millions of visitors from home and abroad every year. Their special guided tour developed     9     the mixed reality technology can help people better understand the Sanxingdui culture. Just put on the special MR glasses, and you can visit     10     was filled with the wonderful stories of the relics.

When you’re in Sichuan province, do come and visit the mysterious and unique Sanxingdui Ruins site.

4 . Archaeologists in Germany have uncovered some of the earliest evidence of the use of clothing, with newly discovered cut marks on a cave bear’s paws suggesting the prehistoric animal was skinned for its fur some 300,000 years ago.

The discovery in Schöningen, northern Germany, is exciting because despite the written records of cave men and women covered in fur in some popular cultures, very little is truly known about how early humans clothed their bodies. Fur, leather and other organic materials typically can’t be preserved beyond 100,000 years.

“The study is significant because direct evidence of prehistoric clothing is scant and we know relatively little about how humans in the deep past were protecting themselves from cold winters. From this early time period, there are only a handful of sites that show evidence of bear skinning, with Schöningen providing the most complete picture,” said study author Ivo Verheijen from Tübingen University in Germany.

Cave bears were large animals, about the size of polar bears, that went extinct about 25,000 years ago. The cave bear’s fur, which has long outer hairs that form an airy protective layer, and short, dense hairs that provide good insulation (隔离), was suitable for making simple clothing or bedding.

The clothing in the site probably wrapped the human body without careful tailoring. The eyed needles needed to sew more excellent designs didn’t emerge in the archaeological record until about 45,000 years ago.

“We found the cut marks on the cave bear’s hands and feet where very little meat or fat is present on the bones, which argues against the cut marks originating from the butchering of the animal,” Verheijen said. “In these locations, the skin is much closer to the bones, which makes marking the bones inevitable when an animal is being skinned.”

The Schöningen site in Germany is most famous for the discovery of the oldest known wooden weapons that were used to kill prey 300,000 years ago.

But it’s still challenging to figure out exactly when ancient humans began wearing clothing. Genetic studies of lice (跳蚤) indicate that clothing lice separated from their human head louse ancestors at least 83,000 years ago and possibly as early as 170,000 years ago, which suggests humans were wearing clothes before major migrations out of Africa. Bone tools found in what’s now Morocco suggest that humans were processing animal skins 90,000 to 120,000 years ago.

The Sanxingdui Ruins, in the city of Guanghan, is one of the     1     (important) ancient remains not only in China but all over the world. It is about 40 kilometers from Chengdu in Sichuan Province.

The Sanxingdui Ruins is best known for     2     (it) rich cultural content, large size, and the length of time it has been standing since it     3     (create). The Sanxingdui Ruins is made up    4     several large relic areas that are considered as the largest ancient Shu cultural relic sites in Sichuan Province,     5     (total) extending 12 square kilometers.

According to     6     the experts were able to find, the Sanxingdui Ruins housed actual life about 2,800 to 4,800 years ago, which means the people     7     (live) behind the mysterious Ruins were during the late Neolithic (新石器时代的) age. While you are visiting the Sanxingdui Ruins, the highlight (最精彩的部分) will be the very unique Sanxingdui Museum in the northeastern part of the Ruins. The museum     8     (cover) a total area of 200,000 square meters and has lots of modern equipment. The government spent over 30 million yuan on the     9     (construct) of the museum, creating     10     simple but very solemn (庄严) style.

8 . The Sanxingdui Ruins Site (三星堆遗址) is one of the greatest archaeological (考古学的) finds of mankind in the 20th century. It was accidentally discovered by a farmer in the 1920s. The site is in the city of Guanghan in Sichuan Province, about 60 kilometers from Chengdu and is believed to be the relics (遗迹) of the ancient Shu Kingdom.

Chinese archaeologists (考古学家) announced this early year that they have found six new sacrificial pits (祭祀坑). The new pits sit next to two sacrificial pits discovered in 1986, with areas ranging (在……内变动) between 30 square meters and 19 square meters. Together they form an area in which people of the ancient Shu Kingdom held ceremonies to offer sacrifices (祭品) to heaven, earth and their ancestors, and wish for good luck and peace.

So far, archaeologists have found more than 500 treasures dating back to 3,000 years ago. There are lots of important cultural items from four of the pits, including pieces of gold masks, gold foil (箔纸), bronze (青铜) masks, bronze trees and large numbers of ivories.

“Surprisingly, we have found some bronze items that have never heard of before,” said Lei Yu, from the Sichuan Archaeology Research Institute. “For example, some large and well-made bronze items have strange-looking dragon or cow designs on them.”

In another major discovery, relics of silk products were found for the first time at Sanxingdui, which shows “the ancient Shu Kingdom was one of the important starts of silk in ancient China”, according to Tang Fei, head of the digging team.

The remains of a gold mask are among the 3,000-year-old artifacts (历史文物) found at Sanxingdui, a 4.6-square-mile area outside Chengdu, capital of Sichuan province. Weighing about 280 grams and     1     (estimate) to be made from 84% gold, the mask is one of over 500 items unearthed from six newly discovered “sacrificial pits (深坑)” in Sanxingdui.

More than 50,000 ancient artifacts     2     (find) at Sanxingdui since the 1920s, when a local farmer     3     (accidental) came upon a number of relics at the site. A major breakthrough occurred in 1986, with the discovery of two ceremonial pits     4     (contain) over 1,000 items. Discoveries made at the site date back to the 12th and 11th centuries BC, and many of the items are now     5     display at an on-site museum.

The site has completely changed experts’ understanding of     6     the ancient civilization developed in China. In particular, evidence suggests that the unique ancient Shu     7     (social) developed independently of neighboring cultures in the Yellow River Valley,     8     was traditionally considered to be the origin of Chinese civilization.

Along with other Shu archaeological     9     (site), it is credited by the UN as “    10     outstanding representative of the Bronze Age Civilization of China, East Asia and even the world.”