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It has
the world's longest continuously used written language system,
and is the source of many major inventions, such as what the
British scholar and biochemist Joseph Needham called the "four
great inventions of Ancient China": paper, the compass,
gunpowder, and printing. Historically, China's cultural sphere
has extended across East Asia as a whole, with Chinese religion,
customs, and writing systems being adopted to varying degrees
by neighbors such as Japan, Korea and Vietnam.
The first
evidence of human presence in the region was found at the
Zhoukoudian cave and is one of the first known specimens of
Homo Erectus, now commonly known as the Peking Man, estimated
to have lived approximately from 300,000 to 550,000 years
ago. Noticeably, it is also known that the Peking Man was
able to control and use Fire.
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