BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) -- The following are highlights of China's archaeological news from the past week:

-- 27 ancient tombs found

A total of 27 ancient tombs have been discovered in central China's Hunan Province, the provincial archaeological research institute said Saturday.

The tombs were found in a construction site in Lanshan County, among which four were built in the Six Dynasties (222-589), and 23 date back to the Sui and Tang Dynasties (581-907).

The unearthed items include porcelain, pottery, ironware and silverware, offering rich materials for studying the culture and burial customs in the region, said Chen Bin, an expert with the provincial archaeological research institute.

-- Ancient copper smelting ruins discovered

Archaeologists discovered a group of copper smelting ruins dating from the Spring and Autumn Period (770-476 B.C.) to the Warring States Period (475-221 B.C.) in southwest China's Yunnan Province.

The archaeologists unearthed 32 ruins, including 28 furnaces and a workshop, in an excavation area of 554 square meters in Jinping Miao, Yao and Dai Autonomous County in the province.

They also found pottery fragments, stoneware and copper slag in the ruins, according to the provincial cultural relics and archaeology research institute.

-- Evidence of Ordovician mass extinction

A group of scientists from China, Australia, the United States and Britain have made an accurate calculation of the first mass extinction that occurred on Earth more than 400 million years ago lasting 200,000 years.

The scientists from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology with Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Australian National University, the University of Western Ontario in London and the University of California have spent eight years on the research of a continuous and complete Ordovician-Silurian boundary profile found in Yongshan County, southwest China's Yunnan Province. Enditem

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