Chinese archeologists say they have spotted the country's oldest wharf in what is believed to be the starting point of an ancient sea route to central and west Asia.

The discovery has reaffirmed the widespread belief that the ancient trade route started in today's Hepu county in the city of Beihai, said local archeologists at Wednesday's symposium on China's marine silk road.

After three years of excavation, the archeologists have unearthed the country's oldest wharf -- at least 2,000 years old --in the village of Guchengtou close to the county seat of Hepu, said Xiong Zhaoming, head of the archeological team.

At the same site, Xiong and his colleagues also excavated relics of an ancient city wall, a moat, some gravel and fragmentary chinaware pieces ingrained with geometrical graphics.

"These make enough evidence that the village was the site of the Hepu county government more than 2,000 years ago," said Xiong.

According to Han Shu Record, or the History of the Imperial Han Dynasty, the five counties of Hepu Prefecture had some 80,000 residents in total.

"We can assume Hepu county alone had no more than 20,000 and it was quite natural for the magistrate's office to be located in the commercial hub," said Xiong.

Chinese scholars have been searching for concrete evidence to confirm a statement in Han Shu Record, which says the ancient marine silk road started in Hepu county in Guangxi and Xuwen county in the neighboring Guangdong Province.

"The new finding has supported the statement and proven the ancient wharf's role in China's foreign trade over 2,000 years ago," Xiong told the symposium.

The two-day symposium has drawn more than 50 archeologists, geologists, historians and geographers from across the country.

China's historical records show that foreign trade through the marine silk road to other Asian countries dated to the Western Han Dynasty (206 BC-24 AD), about 200 years earlier than the inland Silk Road in northwest China that is known today as the country's oldest trade route to Europe and central and west Asia.