Archaeologists were hugely surprised to find the fossil of a human skull, about 1 million years old, at the Xuetangliangzi site in Shiyan, Hubei province, last year. Labeled as "skull No 3 of the Yunxian man", it was found on May 18, 2022, exactly 33 years after "skull No 1 of the Yunxian man "was found nearby.

"Skull No 3 is the best-preserved skull fossil of its time ever found in the hinterlands of the Eurasian region," said Lu Chengqiu, leader of the archaeological team at Xuetangliangzi. The site is the one with the longest history that made it to the 2022 top 10 list.

"It (the fossil) is a world-class discovery; we have rarely ever found complete human skulls in Eurasia. … It offers us important material to study human evolution in East Asia," said Chen Xingcan, director of CASS' Institute of Archaeology.