The skull of a man believed to have lived more than 6,000 years ago was dug up in Shanghai's Qingpu District, the Shanghai Daily reported Thursday.

Researchers believe the man was aged 25 to 30 when he died.

The skull was excavated from February to April at the Qingpu District site called Songze Ancient Culture Ruins, which was first found in 1957.

Researchers said the skull was about 1,000 years older than any other found in Shanghai.

"This is a major breakthrough in the city's archaeological work," Chen Xiejun, vice director of Shanghai Commission of Cultural Relics Management, told a news conference Wednesday.

The city government plans to build a site museum to protect the site.

Songze Ancient Culture Ruins is the origin of the famous Songze Ancient Culture (3900-3200 B.C.) -- one of the city's early important cultures.

Experts said it was 6,000 years since the western part of today's Shanghai dried up into land and this newly excavated ancestor was the city's earliest "live evidence" of its history.

In addition to the skull, archaeologists have excavated the city's earliest sacred platform of 230 square meters, an ancient house and about 40 artifacts at the same site. Most of them were older than 6,000 years.

(China Daily May 14, 2004)