Giant panda bone found in 4,000-year-ago grave

Chinese archaeologists claim that the skeleton unearthed from a 4,000-year-old tomb in central China's Hubei Province belonged to a giant panda, which was used as funerary object.

Chinese archaeologists claim that the skeleton unearthed from a 4,000-year-old tomb in central China's Hubei Province belonged to a giant panda, which was used as funerary object.

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Wu Xianzhu from the Hubei Provincial Archaeology Research Institute said the discovery proves that giant pandas were used as funerary objects in ancient China. The No. 77 tomb, in Guanzhuangping Ruins in Zigui County, is the only tomb with panda funerary objects that has been discovered in the world.

When the tomb was first excavated in 2001, the animal remains found were believed to be the bone of the lower jaw of a pig. But with further research, archaeologists concluded that the bone belongs to a giant panda, Wu said.

Wu said, domestic animals such as pigs and dogs had been used as funerary objects since the early New Stone Age, dating back approximately 8,000 years. Burying giant pandas with the dead shows that ancient people had close contact with the creatures, Xinhua news agency reported.

Panda bones had been unearthed from other ruins of the New Stone Age in the province, indicating that pandas were among the animals hunted by human beings at that time.