Lianhua Baozhai(Lotus Mountain fortress, Qijing County of Chongqing City): A direct evidence of co-existing ancient Chinese and dinosaur tracks

This paper describes the Lianhua Baozhai (Lotus Mountain Fortress) of the Laoyingshan Mountain in Qijiang County, Chongqing City, where abundant and diverse dinosaur tracks, fortress structures and word carvings of past dynasties are exceptionally preserved. The Lianhua Baozhai historic monuments can be traced back to Baoyou 4th Year of the Southern Song Dynasty (A.D. 1256). The fortress might have been used to repel the attacks of the Mongolian Army from the Yuan Dynasty on Sichuan, which was then still dominated by the Southern Song Dynasty. Many historic monuments were also constructed there during the Qing Dynasty. These historic monuments are found along with an abundance of dinosaur tracks (especially hadrosaurid tracks), representing at least five different preservation types, and constituting direct evidence for the long-term inhabitation of ancient Chinese people at this dinosaur track site (perhaps longer than 700 years). The name of the Lianhua Baozhai reflects their belief that the track site represented lotus leaf veins (the mud cracks) and petals (the hadrosaurid tracks) submerged in water (the ripple marks). This study indicates that dinosaur tracks were taken into account in Chinese folklore and in the formation of partial ancient place names in China, which may therefore constitute important clues for the search of dinosaur tracks.