4,500-year-old skeletons found in China

Well-preserved human skeletons estimated to be about 4,500-years-old have been unearthed from an earliest graveyard in southwest China's Sichuan Province, officials said on Sunday. 

The graveyard was discovered on the site of a prehistoric city in Zhaoan Village, Dayi County, according to the Cultural Relics and Archaeology Research Institute of Chengdu City, capital of the province.

The numerous tombs are densely distributed and different burial methods are apparent, Zhou Zhiqing, director of the archaeological team working on the ruins, said, adding that it was the earliest and most complete graveyard of its kind found on the Chengdu Plain.

"The skeletons found were well-preserved as they were beneath ground-water level and were cut off from air," Zhou told state-run Xinhua news agency. The find will help research on neolithic people, such as into health, nutrition, oral diseases and diet composition and so on, Zhou said, adding that the skeletons will also provide evidence for research on neolithic population, pathology and DNA test analysis.

Many other cultural relics were also unearthed from the site, including stone ware, pottery and two ivory bracelets. The new findings will provide materials to aid China's archaeological research on culture resources and development along the upper reaches of the Yangtze River during Late Neolithic Age, he said.