The workers found the ruins in a grotto hidden deep inside another stalactite cave. After carefully removing silt with bamboo prods, the workers lay bare human bones, along with pottery and stoneware.

Each piece of pottery carries well-designed lines of ropes and shell, typical features of late New Stone Age, and carvings on the stoneware are also exquisite, said a member from the archaeological team.

Judging from the quality and number of the articles for burial, archaeological experts concluded that the dead must have been rich when they were alive.

Grotto burials, or simply placing the corpse and burial articles inside a hidden natural cave, were a common practice unique to the valleys of Hongshui, Zuojiang and Youjiang rivers, where many of China's ethnic groups lived, during the period from New Stone Age through to Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), said Li Zhen, an associate research fellow with Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regional Team for Excavation of Cultural Relics.

The finding, the oldest of its kind thus far, would be of value for studying the origin of grotto burial, development in burial customs, especially for studying human culture from late the New Stone Age to the Bronze Age.

(Xinhua 03/14/2001)