Archaeologists have found rather different skeletons in Shandong Province, China. The bones, which are about 5,000 years old, may have belonged to “giants” who inhabited that region in the Neolithic period – and the philosopher Confucius is involved in this story.
The bones of the giants can measure up to 1.90 meters. The nickname, which may seem like an exaggeration for the average height these days, makes sense if you take into account the average Chinese of that period. “These measurements are based on the skeletal structure. If we could see this person alive, he would definitely be taller than that,” explained Fang Hui, president of the School of History and Culture at Shandong University, according to the agency. XinhuaNet.
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This discovery adds new aspects to a research that, since 2016, has been organizing excavations in the ruins of the village of Jiaojia. Thousands of years ago, the Longshan culture, installed in the lower and middle Yellow River, had its political, economic and cultural center where today Shandong is located, and it is now known that the height of its inhabitants was atypical for the average of the continent in the Stone Age.
The novelty, however, is not an isolated and completely unknown fact. The region’s natives, for example, have an average height slightly higher than the national average – in 2015, 18-year-old men measured 1.75 meters, while most Chinese are about 1.72 meters tall.
Furthermore, unscientific evidence has gained some credibility: the philosopher Confucius, who lived between 552 and 479 before the common era, lived in Shandong, and rumors said he was 1.90 meters tall.
The Jiaojia archeological site revealed that the population living in eastern China was already sedentary: they practiced agriculture, had access to nutrient-rich food and were able to develop very well physically.
Another important aspect of their economic life was raising pigs – even teeth and other pig bones were found in some pits.
“Studies and excavations at the site are very important for us to understand the origin of the culture in this region,” said the head of the province’s Cultural Heritage Department, according to the Chinese agency, about the giants.
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