An ancient street in Chaoyang city
2 min readPrayer flags hang from the eaves of a Buddhist temple in Chaoyang Chaoyang Chaoyang has a long history,a really long history. The city is home to one of China’s best and most important paleontology sites where prehistoric birds, plant life and dinosaurs have been found. Chaoyang is also the site to many ancient Chinese cultures going back thousands of years giving Liaoning bragging rights over the rest of China as one of the earliest homes of man found in Asia.
For those interested in the world of dinosaurs Chaoyang is the best place to start in China. The Liaoning Chaoyang Bird Fossil National Geopark is a world unto itself covering over 2,300 sq. km in area. Included in that are not only the research site, but also a large and in-depth museum of some of the finest specimens found to date and is a well-known site throughout the paleontology world. There is a large petrified forest where agate and jade-infused stone trunks go to show Liaoning Province is the home to significant finds of exquisite jade sculptures throughout the centuries. Inside the museum there is even a 4D movie theater with a simulated motion journey through the life and death of the local floraand fauna complete with sprays of mist and bass-rattling speakers to provide a true-to-life experience.
By only going back 5,000 years, Chaoyang was an early site of human culture and some scholars say beginning of Chinese culture.What is now known as the Niuheliang Archaeological Site，an official submission to UNESCO，serves as the cornerstone of what is known as the Hongshan Culture and pre-dates many traditional forms of ancestral worshipand temple building that become commonplace later in imperial incarnations.Visitors can still go to the temple site that was excavated to reveal an ancient structure nearly 22 meters long by approximately 9 meters wide.Set below the soil the sunken temple was believed to be built not of stone but of wood and straw.The collection of artifacts found inside including humanlike figures and animalistic statues and carvings have given archaeologists enough information to deduce the site was designed for worship making it one of the earliest homes of developed civilization in China.
