China's thriving and modern metropolis of Shanghai was first established nearly 6,000 years ago, about two millenniums earlier than previously estimated. Newly discovered artefacts in Shanghai's outskirts prove the first inhabitants migrated from neigbouring Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces more than 6,000 years ago, Song Jian, director of the Shanghai Cultural Relics Management Commission, said.
     Mr Song said new archaeological evidence, including pieces of a human skull, show that today's teeming city of 17 million was first populated some 2,000 years earlier than thought. Experts previously thought the first people to arrive here came from central Henan province some 4,000 years ago, even though in the 1960s relics from a tribe originating from Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces were discovered. "Last April, we found a human skull that proved to be one of the first human beings in Shanghai," the China Daily quoted Zhang Minghua, a curator at the Shanghai Museum, as saying. "They brought Shanghai advanced tools and skills. Ruins of a well were found which marked the first time Chinese stopped being totally dependent on rivers and lakes," Mr Zhang added.

Source: ABC News Online (11 August 2004)