BEIJING: China said its archeologists have discovered another site showing human activity dating back 300,000 to 500,000 years, roughly contemporary with Peking Man.

Archeologists were led to the discovery after they excavated a stone tool at a limestone quarry site on Luotuo Hill in the northeast coastal city of Dalian in Liaoning Province, the Chinese language Guangming Daily, said. They found dozens of stone, animal bone and horn tools at the site.

It said researchers have obtained more than 1,000 samples in the joint excavation exercise conducted by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Dalian Natural History Museum.

An institute researcher, Huang Weiwen, said the presence of stone tools and large animal bones that appear to have been cut or smashed by humans is an indication that the site was used for large-scale human activity in the early days.

“The discovery of the Luotuo Hill site of early human beings is of great significance,” said Gao Chunling, deputy head of the Dalian museum. It may prove to be an important source of information about human evolution and the origin of culture in the region, Gao said.

The other site of Peking Man at Zhoukoudian Caves in suburbs of Beijing has produced remains of deer and antelope horn tools. The caves also yielded skulls of Peking Man, or Homo erectus, in the 1920s and 1930s.

Peking Man was first believed to have lived in Zhoukoudian about 400,000 to 500,000 years ago. But some Chinese scientists later said they were 200,000 years older. Fossils of ancient mammals such as elephants and tigers were also similar to those unearthed at Zhoukoudian, according to the researchers.