On the north bank of Fuxian Lake in Chengjiang County, Yunnan Province sits a straw-hat-shaped mountain     1     (call) Maotian Mountain,     2     a 512-hectare site is praised as a “world-class treasure trove of fossils” by the international scientific community. On July 1,1984, young paleontologists in China discovered a fossil of the arthropod (节肢动物化石) with a long tail in Maotian Mountain. “    3     we had studied in China were just shell of fossils. The arthropods, lifelike fossils with legs, which belonged to fossils of soft-bodied animals, are     4     game changer in the research of China’s paleontology (古生物学)”, Hou Xianguang, a paleontologist said.

Scientists have obtained a large number of research results on Chengjiang Fossil Site. The reason why Chengjiang fauna (动物群) is     5     great significance is that it is closely related to the emergence of the animal tree of life.

Up to now, more than 20 phyla and more than 280 species     6     (record)in the Chengjiang Fossil Site, of which, 80% are new species. On July 1, 2012, the Chengjiang Fossil Site     7     (be) inscribed on the World Heritage List by UNESCO,     8     (become) China’ s first World Heritage Site for paleontological fossils.

The UNESCO evaluation says the Chengjiang Fossil Site is one of the     9     (early) records of a complex marine ecosystem of the early Cambrian communities. The property displays excellent quality of fossil     10     (preserve). It presents an exceptional record of the rapid diversification of life on Earth during the early Cambrian period.

Archaeological (考古的)     1    (discover) of Changsha wares (陶器) have occurred randomly over the decades, and key findings of kiln (窑) ruins     2    (make) particularly since 2010. There were not only Tang Dynasty Changsha wares     3    (unearth), but also some celadons (青瓷) from an even     4    (early) period.

They’re key witnesses     5     the Silk Road on the sea and Sino-foreign exchanges of material culture. Archaeological findings show that Changsha wares were exported to about 30 countries,     6    (range) from East and Southeast Asian neighbors to North Africa. Craftsmen and workshop owners in Changsha participated in a wave of globalization     7     actively explored overseas markets.

    8    (consequent), shapes of Changsha wares were also influenced by foreign elements. Seeing the antiques, we can also understand     9     public aesthetics (审美) of their time. They tell     10     was viewed as traditional Chinese beauty.

The Terracotta Warriors is a household name worldwide. Now, 2lst-century science is making astonishing new discoveries of these world famous     1    (wonder). The year was 221BC. In Mexico, the city of Teotihaucan was expanding to become ancient America’s greatest city. In Egypt, the city of Alexandria boasted a 130-meter lighthouse, one of the     2    (tall) buildings in the world. And in China,     3     team of craftsmen began one of mankind’s most incredible creations.

In 1974, farmers     4    (dig) a well near the Chinese city of Xi’an discovered their works — strange pieces of clay sculpted in human form. 8000 clay warriors     5     (bury) in three pits (坑) near the tomb of one of history’s most     6    ( power) men, calling himself Shihuangdi.

More than 2000 years     7    , he unified (统一) seven warring kingdoms into a single empire called China, giving himself the title of “first emperor” and building himself one of the biggest pyramid tombs ever     8    (see) on earth.

Why did China’s first emperor order 8000 life-size clay soldiers for his tomb? And     9    did his artists make those 8000 statues, each nearly 2 meters tall and weighing up to 300kilograms? Archaeology is still uncovering     10    (them) secrets.

The Potala Palace (布达拉宫) features a wall painting     1     illustrates a historic marriage between members of the Han and Tibetan ethnic groups. Like the wall painting, many other relics in Tibet have also helped     2    (far) uncover cultural communication between Tibet and the rest of China.

    3    (original) built in the eighth century, the Samye Monastery is listed as an example of a combination of cultural heritage and architectural styles, while the Shalu Monastery, set up in 1087, is another example of a mix of architectural styles.

The earliest archaeological site     4    (identify) at the heart of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (高原) so far is the Nwya Devu site. More than 4,000 stone artifacts (石器)     5    (find) at the Paleolithic site since 2016. Scientific analysis shows that the site     6    (date) back to some 40,000 years ago.

Archaeological     7    (discovery) have also provided abundant evidence of cultural integration. For example, the wooden carving unearthed from Tibet’s Ngari and those from Xinjiang are similar     8     shape.

The cultural     9    (connect) between Tibet and the Yellow River basin was proved at the Karub ruins with the finding of a crop planted in northern China. The finding proved     10     communication between the plateau and northern China some 5,000 years ago.

More than 500 items were discovered at Sanxingdui Ruins site in southwest China’s Sichuan Province. These items, including remains of a gold mask,     1    (dig) in one of China’s     2    (significant) excavations(n. 发掘) ever.

Sanxingdui is believed to have sat at the heart of the Shu state,     3     historians know relatively little about due to rare     4    (write) records.     5    (discovery) made at the site date from the 12th and 11th centuries BC, and many of the items are now on show at an on-site museum. The site has changed experts understanding of     6     civilization developed in ancient China.

Archaeologists(考古学家) realized they had just got     7     excellent chance to study ancient culture     8    (date) back between 3,000 and 5,000 years.     9     particular, evidence of a unique Shu culture suggests that the kingdom     10    (develop) independently of neighboring societies in the Yellow River Valley, which was traditionally considered to be the cradle(摇篮) of Chinese civilization.

Archaeologists have uncovered a collection of 3,000-year-old handicrafts at Sanxingdui, Sichuan province. The researchers found more than 500 objects at the site in 2019, most of    1    were carved out of gold, bronze, jade and ivory.

Experts are unsure who made the handicrafts, but they guess that the creators belonged to the Shu state, a    2    (high) skilled civilization conquered by the neighboring state of Qin in 316 B.C. Because the people of Shu left behind few    3    (write) records, historians’ knowledge of their culture is limited.

A major highlight of the find is a 0.6-pound fragment (碎片) of a gold mask that may have been used    4    (wear) during religious ceremonies. About 84 percent pure gold, the piece likely weighed close to one pound in total,     5    (make) it one of the heaviest gold masks from that time period discovered in China to date.

Other    6    (discovery) made at the site included two kinds of silk. Silk has played    7    important role in China’s long history. As the statement points out, the silk was thought to serve    8    a carrier by the ancient inhabitants of Sanxingdui for communication between heaven, earth, man and god. The presence of silk at Sanxingdui     9    (indicate) that the ancient Shu Kingdom is one of the important origins of silk in ancient China. All these findings enrich and     10    (deep) our understanding of the Sanxingdui culture.

Since Chinese archaeologists(考古学家)     1    (make) public some of the newly unearthed artifacts from the Sanxingdui Ruins site on Saturday, a gold mask has caught most of the attention from experts and     2     public alike.

Recognized as one of the most important ancient     3    (remain) found in the 20^th century, the 3000-year-old Sanxingdui in southwest China’s Sichuan province is a treasure house     4    (bury) with a collection of pottery, jade, bronze and gold wares.     5     astonished the archaeologists most about this gold mask is its large size. 23 centimeters wide and 28 centimeters high. Although only about half of the gold mask was unearthed, it’s so far the     6    (large) of its kind found in the primary stage of the Chinese civilization, weighing 280 grams.

It     7    (estimate) that the whole mask could weigh more than 500 grams. This lightweight mask is made of gold foil(箔), featuring a raised nose with a sharp edge at the tip. It’s     8    (basic) the same size as the head sculptures from the same pit. Thus, archaeologists believe it was originally attached     9     the face of a head sculpture.

The masks’ eyes and eyebrows are delicately hollowed out,     10    (create) a sense of seriousness and dignity. They most likely represent authorities or top-level figures at that period, according to archaeologists.