Archeological workers have collected some 300 pieces of stone implements and chinaware from five newly discovered Neolithic sites in Daqing City, northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, sources confirmed on Wednesday.

The finding was reported by a group of archeologists from the Daqing museum and cultural heritage administration who traveled some 1,200 kilometers along the Nenjiang River and the Wuyur River in mid April on a site survey.

All the five Neolithic sites were discovered close to a village called Yantongtun, in the Dorbod Mongolian Autonomous County, in the southwestern part of the province.

The stone implements they collected at these sites were nicely processed and rich in variety -- a sign that they had been designed for different processes of social production.

"We've found stone arrowheads and scrapers, which seem to suggest that fishery was booming in the region at that time," said an expert with the Daqing municipal museum who did not give his name.

The chinaware they found were mostly handmade and had very simple designs, he said.

Local cultural heritage officials say the stoneware and chinaware pieces they collected were similar to those unearthed from another Neolithic site, the Ang'angxi Neolithic cultural site in the adjacent Qiqihar City, where archeologists found large quantities of delicate stone implements, pieces of chinaware and skeletons of deer, pigs, dogs, rabbits, birds, fishes and frogs in the 1940s and 1950s.

"But the Neolithic Period seemed to have lingered longer in the Dorbod County and it was in this region that it finally evolved to the Bronze Age," said an official.

Experts say they are drafting a report based on the finding to the provincial cultural authority for further research work and better protection of the sites.

(Xinhua News Agency June 3, 2004)