The management of the Peking Man site has outlined plans to protect and upgrade the famous 500,000-year-old palaeoanthropological remains.

In response to criticism of negligence from academics and visitors, the Institute of Vertebrate Palaeontology and Palaeoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences released a plan on Friday for the site's restoration.

The site in Zhoukoudian, on Beijing's southwestern outskirts, became famous after Chinese scientists excavated fossilized Peking Man skulls in the late 1920s and 1930s.

Gao Xing - an academy professor who is now in charge of the restoration project - said that his institute plans to check all possible hazards to the treasured ruins and keep the site attractive to international scientists and visitors.

He said that any proposals for the site must benefit its long-term preservation as well as further excavation and research.

Western scientists found the site and tried to dig in 1921. Chinese and Western researchers have carried out continuous excavation work there since 1927.

Modern scientists believe there may still be important remains underground to add to the many precious fossils of ape-like human skulls, stone tools, and mammal bones, which provide evidence of a high level of civilization in the remote past.

Under the protection plan of the academy of sciences, neighbouring factories and mines will be banned, and any fossils unearthed should be well-preserved.

Heritage-protection experts and palaeoanthropologists rejected a proposed giant dome over the site, which would have been similar to the architecture of the emperor Qin Shihuang's Mausoleum near Xi'an.

They preferred to maintain the original conditions, which would allow future scientists to do further research, Gao said.

The academy institute also plans to install an electronic monitoring system at the site to prevent fire and other possible damage.

( China Daily April 18, 2002)