On December 24th, 2023, the “2023 Top Ten Archaeological News in China” and the “2023 Top Ten Archaeological News in the World” measured by influence were announced. They were selected from the perspective of news communication by China Media Group, together with the Institute of Archaeology of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the School of Archaeology and Museology of Peking University, the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of Chinese Academy of Sciences and National Center for Archaeology and almost 30 provincial archaeological research institutions in China.

The project “Jilin and Longdadong Site-Discovery of Evidence of Evolution and Diffusion of Ancient Humans in Northeast Asia”, jointly carried out by Jilin Province Cultural Relics Institute of Archaeology and the School of Archaeology and Cultural Relics of the Faculty of History of Liaoning University, was selected as the “Top Ten Archaeological News in China in 2023”. Led by associate professor Xu Ting, the findings of this project were a major breakthrough in Paleolithic archaeology in Northeast China in recent years, which has had an important impact on exploring key academic issues such as the evolution and interaction of prehistoric culture in Northeast Asia, population diffusion and environmental adaptation. It was also the first time that LNU’s archaeological excavation project has been selected as the top ten archaeological news in China.

The project is crucial for the investigation and research of ancient human sites in the Changbai Mountain area in Jilin Province, a province in the northeastern part of China. Associate professor Xu, as the project leader, carried out the archaeological excavation of the site for three consecutive years from 2021 to 2023. With their efforts, a total of 170 square meters has been excavated, exposing nine cultural horizons and unearthing nearly 20,000 stone products and animal fossils. Supported by research teams in geology, sedimentology, chronology, paleoenvironmentology, molecular biology and other disciplines, Xu and his team successfully constructed for the first time a complete and coherent Paleolithic cultural sequence in the Changbai Mountain area over a 50,000-year period. Many important media such as Xinhua News Agency, People's Daily, CCTV, Guangming Daily and China Cultural Relics Newspaper reported the findings to Longdadong Cultural Site.

This investigation and research in Jilin Province have greatly promoted the development of archaeological research in Northeast Asia and further highlighted the great potential of paleolithic archaeological research in the Changbai Mountain area. It offers great theoretical and practical significance for further analyzing the evolutionary history of ancient humans in the Changbai Mountain area and Yalu River basin.