Archaeologists have unearthed more than 240,000 cultural relics near the Three Gorges Reservoir, an official with the Cultural Heritage Bureau of Hubei Province said Monday.

China has allocated more than 1.9 billion yuan ($285 million) to excavate and protect cultural relics in the region, said Wang Fengzhu, director of the Three Gorges Reservoir cultural relics protection department.

Since 1992, archaeologists have excavated 1,087 archaeological sites scattered across 22 cities and counties.

The uncovered artifacts include prehistoric cultural relics dating back more than 2 million years to the Old Stone Age. Relics from the Xia (C.2070– C.1600 BC) and Qing (1644-1911) dynasties have also been recovered.

At one point, there were more than 1,000 experts at the site, equivalent to about two-thirds of the staff of all of China's archaeological research institutes.

Tong Mingkang, vice director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, said the Three Gorges Project Construction Committee had already initiated an overall plan to protect the cultural relics in the region.

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