The city's first inhabitants migrated from areas of today's northern Zhejiang and southern Jiangsu provinces more than 6,000 years ago, instead of from the region of today's eastern Henan Province nearly 4,000 years ago, Huang Xuanpei, former curator of Shanghai Museum, said yesterday.

His conclusion was based on the archaeological evidence that proved an earlier existence from South China 2,000 years before the Henan immigrants.

In 2000, two pieces of pottery, which belonged to the Zhongyuan Culture 4,000 years ago and originated from eastern Henan Province, were unearthed from Guangfulin in the city's Songjiang District.

"But we have already got an evidence to prove that immigrants from Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces were earlier than those coming from Henan Province," said Huang.

In the 1960s, relics which belonged to the Majiabang Culture, originating from the area near the Taihu Lake 6,000 years ago, were discovered in Songze Village and Fuquanshan of Qingpu District and Zhashan of Jinshan District.

"This April, we found a human skull, that proved to be one of the first human beings in Shanghai, from one of the Majiabang relics at Zhaoxiang Town of Qingpu District," said Zhang Minghua, associate curator of the archaeology department of Shanghai Museum.

Majiabang Culture was first found in Majiabang Village, Jiaxing, Zhejiang Province, and was named after it.

Relics from the tribe were found later in many places in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces.

The oldest one, approximately 7,000 years old, was found in Luojiajiao of Tongxiang in Zhejiang Province.

"They brought Shanghai advanced tools and skills. Ruins of a well were found which marked the first time Chinese stopped being totally dependent on rivers and lakes. And there we also found round-grained rice for the first time in China's history," said Zhang.

"People used to consider Shanghai as a booming new city with a history of only several hundred years, but that's wrong," said Zhang.

Archaeological evidence has proved that an ancient coastline ran along Zhelin, Maqiao and Zhuzhai in southern Shanghai with the eastern part formed about 6,000 years ago by soil from the Yangtze River.

(China Daily August 10, 2004)