The Great Wall
Across the bare hills.
danmairen — CC BY-SA 3.0 · ping lin — CC BY-SA 3.0 · ping lin — CC BY-SA 3.0 · danmairen — CC BY-SA 3.0 · danmairen — CC BY-SA 3.0 · danmairen — CC BY-SA 3.0 · danmairen — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Jonathan Chen — CC BY-SA 4.0
One of the first Palaeolithic sites excavated in China, called «the cradle of prehistoric archaeology in the East»; a woolly rhinoceros fossil and stone tools were found here in 1920, the French palaeontologists Émile Licent and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin dug it in 1923, the 1980 excavation dated its traces of human life to between 40,000 and 15,000 years ago, and it has been a national protected monument since 1988. A stretch of the Ming-dynasty Great Wall runs through the site, and the scenic area also takes in the earthen Hongshan fort, the «soldiers' caves», tunnels dug into the cliff and attributed to the fort's garrison, a museum of the archaeological site, another of Ningxia's Great Wall, and a valley of eroded yardang landforms. The area is rated 5A, China's top grade for tourist attractions; entry costs CNY 60, combined tickets with the area bus and the caves about CNY 140, and it is open from 8 am to 6 pm, per visitor guides.
Across the bare hills.
Tunnels in the cliff.
Stone Age tools.
Linhe Town, Lingwu, east of Yinchuan
The basic ticket is CNY 60, but the parts of the area lie far apart, so many visitors take the combined ticket of about CNY 140 with the bus and caves, per visitor guides.