He County or Hexian (simplified Chinese: 和县; traditional Chinese: 和縣; pinyin: Hé Xiàn) is a county in the east of Anhui Province, China, under the jurisdiction of Ma'anshan. It has a population of 650,000 and an area of 1,412 square kilometres (545 mi2). The government of He County is located in Liyang Town.
History From 1965 to 2011, He County was under the jurisdiction of Chaohu. On August 22, 2011, the Anhui provincial government reorganized the province and split Chaohu into three parts that were absorbed by neighboring prefecture-level cities.
Geography He County is located on the northern bank of the Yangtze River. He County borders Chuzhou to the northwest, Nanjing to the northeast, the three urban districts of Ma'anshan to the east, Wuhu to the south, and Hanshan County to the west. He County has a total area of 1318.6 square kilometers (509 sq mi), of which 48% is arable land. He County is situated on the Yangtze Plain and has relatively flat terrain in the southeast, with ponds dotting the alluvial plains, with the northwest of the county consisting of rolling hills.
Climate
Administrative divisions He County has jurisdiction to 9 towns. Its 1 former town and 4 former townships were merged to other towns.
9 Towns
Archaeology
The human remains discovered at Hexian includes a vault, cranial fragments, mandibular, and dental elements catalogued as PA830-PA835 and PA840-PA845. The site containing hominin material was excavated in 1980 and May through June 1981 by IVPP teams alongside many other transitional mammalian fossils in layer 4 of Longtan Cave. Cui and Wu (2015) suggest that although the site is around 400 ka, better dating will be required. It was once called Homo erectus hexianensis, but other studies suggest that the differences in the specimen are not differentiating on the subspecies-level.
Cranium The skull (PA830) was discovered in several fragments lacking most of the basicranium. In 1982, the endocast was reconstructed and the cranial capacity was measured to be 1025. The frontal and temporal lobes are almost complete, while the parietal and occipital lobes are complete. Otherwise, the exterior specimen is very well preserved. During the 1981 excavations, a right supraorbital torus and parietal were reported. The thickness, profile, brow, and distinct nuchal-occipital boundary are alike Chinese Homo erectus. However, a lack of postorbital constriction, increased width, a curved sagittal profile, a long parietal, and a high temporal are unlike these groups. Aside from the vault, two parietals, PA840 and PA841, are known.
Mandible The dental-mandibular remains were discovered in 1980 alongside the vault in excavation pit 3C. The mandible is PA831, and four isolated teeth are PA832, PA833, PA834-1, and PA834-2; PA835 is another tooth. 831 is a mandible with M2 and M3 in place, with a P3-P4 septum remaining in place. The mandible is thought to belong to a young adult individual, but sex estimation is not possible. The mandibular body was robust, and a well-differentiated mylohyoid line and a posteriorly-positioned lateral prominence are derived traits. Overall, the mandible has no Neanderthal traits, but quite similar to Homo antecessor. The teeth are characteristic of Homo erectus.
Classification Liu et al. (2017) suggest that the Hexian hominins either belong to the same robust-jawed paleodeme as the Penghu hominin, or a robust morph of mainland Homo erectus. Overall, the morph displays primitive traits that is roughly contemporaneous with the hominins at Zhoukoudian. Wu et al. (2006) suggest that the differences are on account of local variation rather than subspecies-level differences, and that the Zhoukoudian sample is not representative of the taxon's full diversity. In comparison with Zhoukoudian, the Hexian crania are derived in the frontal and posterior regions, but derived towards Indonesian populations in the lateral region. Cui and Wu (2015) suggest that these are either retentions or gene flow between regions.
Notable people Zhang Ji, Tang dynasty poet and author Jackie Chan, actor and martial artist (ancestry) Xu Haifeng, first Chinese gold Olympic medal winner Shou-Wu Zhang, mathematician
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