Jeongok-ri Prehistoric Site

Spread over a wide hill above the Hantan River, the Jeongok-ri site is Korea's best-known Palaeolithic site. The hand axes found here have the same shape as the Acheulean tools of Europe and Africa, and they were the first such finds in East Asia. Until then many researchers believed this tool type did not exist in East Asia, so the discovery drew attention from Palaeolithic scholars worldwide.

History: a stone picked up by the river

The site was found by an American serviceman, not an archaeologist. Greg Bowen, who was working at a US Air Force weather unit in Dongducheon, noticed unusual stones by the river during a visit to the Hantan River resort. Convinced they were tools, he sent samples and a short report to the archaeologist Professor Kim Won-yong. Sources date the discovery to 1977 or 1978.

A preliminary survey in 1979 was followed by many excavations, which produced hand axes, choppers, scrapers, polyhedrons and other stone tools. The site was designated a Historic Site on 2 October 1979.

In the first survey, besides the spot where Bowen picked up his tools (Point 1), Professor Kim's team and Professor Chung Young-hwa each found a new location, and 31 stone tools and 15 flakes were collected from the three points. When the results were published in 1979, Jeongok-ri was suddenly on the map of world Palaeolithic research.

What to see

• The prehistoric site park: broad grassy slopes with walking paths and figures of Stone Age people and animals. It is an easy walk with children.
• The soil profile exhibit: a cut through the site's layers. In the clay you can see wedge-shaped drying cracks thought to date from an ice age, and a layer of volcanic ash blown over from Japan shows that the upper layers formed roughly 20,000 to 100,000 years ago. The profile is also a geosite of the Hantangang UNESCO Global Geopark.
• Jeongok Prehistory Museum: right next to the site. It shows hand axes from Jeongok-ri along with skull casts tracing human evolution and a life-size mammoth model.

Good to know

Research on the exact age of the Jeongok-ri hand axes is still ongoing, so dates vary between sources. What is clear is that, of the many Palaeolithic sites along the Hantan and Imjin rivers, Jeongok-ri is the largest. Every spring the Yeoncheon Paleolithic Festival is held around the site.

Tripto tips

• Museum hours: Tuesday to Sunday 10:00–18:00 (last entry 17:30). Closed on Mondays, 1 January and on Seollal and Chuseok days; if Monday is a public holiday, the museum stays open. Admission is free.
• Getting there: from Jeongok Station on Seoul Metro Line 1, buses towards the site leave from the Nonghyup crossroads in front of the station, and the ride is only a few stops. Drivers can use the car park at the site.
• Time needed: 2–3 hours for the museum and a walk around the site. The hill has little shade, so bring a hat and water in summer.
• Combine with: the basalt gorges of the Hantan River, about 5 km away, for a full day.