Huifeng Mountain

Overview

Huifeng Mountain lies in Baima Town, Lishui District, about 21 km south-east of the district seat. It forms the middle section of the Maoshan range and runs north-east to south-west, with a summit given as 229 m. The position, the range and the elevation all come from a paper published in Vertebrata PalAsiatica in 1980, which records a survey made in that year and gives neither the vertical datum nor the year of measurement. The district government's location page lists Huifeng Mountain among the higher mountains in the district without giving an elevation, and the two do not conflict.

Administratively the mountain falls in Baima Town: the district civil affairs bureau's publication of the first batch of place-name cultural heritage in June 2022 lists "Huifeng Mountain" in the Baima Town row. That document publishes a proposed list rather than a formally promulgated register, and any citation must say so.

The name is written in four ways. This entry takes the form used on the district government website, 廻峰山; the 1980 paper writes 迴峰山 and once shortens it to 峰山; the civil affairs bureau publication and the municipal register of protected cultural relic sites write 回峰山. All four point to one mountain, and this site does not decide which form is correct.

On the basin: no official document has been found that names the basin to which Huifeng Mountain belongs, so the entry records it as undetermined. The divide between the two systems of the Qinhuai River and Shijiu Lake runs east to west across the middle of the district, its course set out point by point in the district's near-term territorial space plan, with the stretch at Zhujiabian in Baima Town lying on the line; which side of the divide Huifeng Mountain stands on is not stated in official documents, and this site does not supply a guess.

Formation and change

The mountain belongs to the Ningzhenyang hill country. The 1980 paper records that it forms the middle section of the Maoshan range and runs north-east to south-west; no first-tier source has been found for the age of the mountain's formation or for its structural setting, so nothing is written here.

Shenxian Cave lies on the north-west slope at a little over 80 m. It is a cave developed along the bedding planes of Carboniferous limestone, running roughly north-east 70 degrees (1980 paper). A 2001 paper in East China Geology, drawing on a multi-disciplinary study of geology, landforms, sporopollen, fossil vertebrates and early humans, radiocarbon dating and archaeology, concludes that the cave was formed by groundwater dissolving Carboniferous limestone along bedding-plane fissures; the same paper dates the cave deposits to the early Holocene or the early Neolithic, about 11,000 years ago.

The deposits fall into an upper and a lower part. The upper part is reddish-brown sandy soil, uncemented and without bedding, containing limestone breccia, quartzite gravel and stalactite blocks; the animal fossils and scattered fragments of charcoal all come from it, and it is 1.5–2.5 m thick (1980 paper). The cave was cleared and excavated between May and August 1977, and 19 kinds of animal fossils were recorded, including the last hyena and the brown bear; radiocarbon dating gave 11,200 ± 1,000 years ago. The 2001 paper adds that the last hyena, a marker of the Middle to Late Pleistocene, occurs together with pottery sherds, a marker of Neolithic culture.

The two dates belong to two studies: 11,200 ± 1,000 years is the radiocarbon figure given in the 1980 paper, and about 11,000 years is the judgement reached in the 2001 paper. This site sets them side by side and does not rewrite one into the other.

Landscape and visiting

Huifeng Mountain's interest centres on Shenxian Cave. The 1980 paper records that a human temporal bone was found in the fossil heap, obtained on 16 May while the deposits were being cleared; the bone shows no marked difference from the modern human form and should belong to Homo sapiens, and the paper notes that it is treated in a separate study. The 2001 paper lists the discovery of the temporal bone as new material for the study of early humans in the middle and lower Yangtze.

The district government's district overview page lists the Huifeng Mountain early-human fossil site among the district's cultural antiquities. No first-tier source has been found for the site's protection level, the batch in which it was announced, or its protection boundary; its level and batch are recorded by the history sub-site, and this entry does not give them. The mountain also holds a municipal-level protected cultural relic site, the Huifeng Mountain Counter-Diehard Campaign Site (Republican period, Huifeng Mountain, Baima Town); its level, its batch and the events it concerns are recorded by the history sub-site, and this entry notes only that it stands on this mountain.

No first-tier source has been found for walking trails, viewing facilities, tickets or opening hours on Huifeng Mountain, so no visiting detail is given here; readers who need it should rely on the district culture and tourism department and the town. This information is current as of September 2026.

Open questions

• The basin is undetermined: no document from a water, forestry or natural resources department has been found that names the basin to which Huifeng Mountain belongs. The divide between the two river systems runs through Zhujiabian in Baima Town, and official documents do not say which side of it the mountain lies on; the entry records the basin as undetermined rather than guessing.
• The elevation of 229 m has been found in one source only, the 1980 paper, which gives no vertical datum and no year of measurement; the district government website lists Huifeng Mountain among the higher mountains without an elevation. The two do not conflict, and the district's highest point, 368.5 m, cannot be assigned to any named mountain on this evidence.
• Four written forms of the name stand side by side: 廻峰山 (district government website), 迴峰山 and 峰山 (1980 paper), and 回峰山 (civil affairs bureau publication and municipal register of protected cultural relic sites). The entry takes the district government website form for its title and lists the other three in the body without deciding between them.
• "Baima Commune" is the administrative name of 1980; it is Baima Town today. The entry uses the current town name and quotes the original verbatim where it is cited, and no present-day administrative unit is to be inferred from the older document.
• Shenxian Cave has two dates, 11,200 ± 1,000 years (radiocarbon, 1980 paper) and about 11,000 years (2001 paper), belonging to two studies and shown side by side.
• Claims in the 2001 paper such as "the pottery sherds are the oldest in China with a complete stratigraphic record" and "Chinese civilisation should be traced back ten thousand years" are the researchers' own assertions, and this site does not write them into the entry.