Peking Man (''Homo erectus pekinensis'', originally "''Sinanthropus pekinensis''") is a
subspecies
In Taxonomy (biology), biological classification, subspecies (: subspecies) is a rank below species, used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics (Morphology (biology), morpholog ...
of ''
H. erectus'' which inhabited what is now northern China during the
Middle Pleistocene
The Chibanian, more widely known as the Middle Pleistocene (its previous informal name), is an Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale or a Stage (stratigraphy), stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocen ...
. Its
fossil
A fossil (from Classical Latin , ) is any preserved remains, impression, or trace of any once-living thing from a past geological age. Examples include bones, shells, exoskeletons, stone imprints of animals or microbes, objects preserve ...
s have been found in a cave some southwest of
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
(referred to in the West as
Peking upon its first discovery), known as the
Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site. The first fossil, a tooth, was discovered in 1921, and Zhoukoudian has since become the most productive ''H. erectus'' site in the world. Peking Man was instrumental in the foundation of Chinese anthropology, and fostered an important dialogue between Western and Eastern science. Peking Man became the centre of anthropological discussion, and was classified as a direct human ancestor, propping up the Out of Asia theory that humans evolved in Asia.
Peking Man also played a vital role in the restructuring of Chinese identity following the
Chinese Communist Revolution, and it was used to introduce the general populace to
Marxism
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
and science. Early models of Peking Man society were compared to
communist
Communism () is a sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology within the socialist movement, whose goal is the creation of a communist society, a socioeconomic order centered on common ownership of the means of production, di ...
or
nationalist
Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...
ideals, leading to discussions on
primitive communism and
polygenism (that Peking Man was the direct ancestor of
Chinese people
The Chinese people, or simply Chinese, are people or ethnic groups identified with Greater China, China, usually through ethnicity, nationality, citizenship, or other affiliation.
Chinese people are known as Zhongguoren () or as Huaren () by ...
). This produced a strong schism between Western and Eastern interpretations of the origin of modern humans, especially as the West adopted the
Out of Africa theory in the late 20th century, which described Peking Man as an offshoot in human evolution. Though Out of Africa is now the consensus, Peking Man
interbreeding with human ancestors is still discussed.
Peking Man characterises the classic ''H. erectus'' anatomy. The skull is long and heavily fortified, featuring an inflated bar of bone circumscribing the crown, crossing along the
brow ridge, over the ears, and connecting at the back of the skull; as well as a
sagittal keel running across the midline. The bone of the skull and the
long bone
The long bones are those that are longer than they are wide. They are one of five types of bones: long, short, flat, irregular and sesamoid. Long bones, especially the femur and tibia, are subjected to most of the load during daily activities ...
s is extremely thickened. The face is protrusive (midfacial
prognathism), the eye sockets are wide, the jaws are robust and chinless, the teeth are large, and the
incisors are
shovel-shaped. Brain volume ranged from , for an average of just over —within the range of variation for modern humans. The limbs are broadly anatomically comparable to those of modern humans. ''H. erectus'' in such northerly latitudes may have averaged roughly in height, compared to for more tropical populations.
Peking Man lived in a cool, predominantly steppe, partially forested environment, alongside deer, rhinos, elephants, bison, buffalo, bears, wolves, big cats, and other animals. Peking Man intermittently inhabited the Zhoukoudian cave site from as far back as 800,000 years ago to as recently as 230,000 years ago, but the precise chronology is unclear. This spans several cold
glacial and warm
interglacial
An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene i ...
periods. The cultural complexity of Peking Man is fiercely debated. If Peking Man was capable of hunting (as opposed to predominantly scavenging),
making clothes, and
controlling fire, the population would have been well-equipped to survive frigid glacial periods. If not, the population would have had to retreat southward and return later. It is further disputed if Peking Man inhabited the cave, or was killed by giant hyenas (''
Pachycrocuta'') and dumped there. Over 100,000 pieces of
stone tool
Stone tools have been used throughout human history but are most closely associated with prehistoric cultures and in particular those of the Stone Age. Stone tools may be made of either ground stone or knapped stone, the latter fashioned by a ...
s have been recovered from Zhoukoudian. Those pieces have been mainly
debitage
In archaeology, debitage is all the material produced during the process of lithic reduction – the production of stone tools and weapons by knapping stone. This Assemblage (archaeology), assemblage may include the different kinds of lithic fla ...
(wastage), but also include many simple
choppers and
flakes, and a few
retouched tools such as
scrapers and possibly
burins.
Taxonomy
Research history
Discovery

To aid the
China Geological Survey's efforts to map out economically relevant deposits, the
Geological Survey of Sweden sent the Swedish
economic geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson to China in 1914. Andersson soon also began collecting archaeological finds and "
dragon bones
''Long gu'' are remains of ancient life (such as fossils) prescribed for a variety of ailments in Traditional Chinese Medicine, Chinese medicine and Chinese herbalism, herbalism. They were historically believed, and are traditionally considere ...
", as well as documenting
Chinese mythology
Chinese mythology () is mythology that has been passed down in oral form or recorded in literature throughout the area now known as Greater China. Chinese mythology encompasses a diverse array of myths derived from regional and cultural tradit ...
. In 1918, while in
Beijing
Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...
(then referred to in the West as
Peking), he was pointed towards a potentially interesting fossil deposit in the mining town of
Zhoukoudian in the
Fangshan District
Fangshan District () is a district of the city of Beijing. It is situated in the southwest of Beijing, away from downtown Beijing. It has an area of and a population of 1,312,778 (2020 Census). The district is divided into 8 subdistricts, 14 tow ...
, about southwest, by the American chemistry teacher John McGregor Gibb. When Andersson visited a month later, he was directed towards an old
limestone
Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...
quarry which the locals called Chi Ku Shan ('Chicken Bone Hill'). They believed the many rodent fossils found there belonged to chickens stolen by a malevolent group of foxes that had turned into evil
trickster
In mythology and the study of folklore and religion, a trickster is a character in a story (god, goddess, spirit, human or anthropomorphisation) who exhibits a great degree of intellect or secret knowledge and uses it to play tricks or otherw ...
spirits and drove a man insane.
Andersson left China to work on other projects, but returned in 1921 with the prominent American palaeontologist
Walter W. Granger and the Austrian palaeontologist
Otto Zdansky, a recent graduate of the
Palaeontological Museum of Uppsala University. Andersson decided that the Chi Ku Shan
locality would be an excellent training ground for Zdansky before the pair moved on to excavating ''
Hipparion'' (horse) fossils in
Henan
Henan; alternatively Honan is a province in Central China. Henan is home to many heritage sites, including Yinxu, the ruins of the final capital of the Shang dynasty () and the Shaolin Temple. Four of the historical capitals of China, Lu ...
. They were advised by a local that more interesting "dragon bones" could be found at a nearby fissure in a limestone cliff, later named Longgushan ('Dragon Bone Hill') locality. That same year, Zdansky found the first fossil (specimen PMU M3550)—a human tooth—in the site, but he did not report it to Andersson. While studying the Zhoukoudian material in Uppsala, Zdansky identified another human tooth, and reported his find (which he cautiously labelled as ''Homo'' sp.?) to his professor and mentor
Carl Wiman, who informed Andersson in 1926.
As part of his world tour, the
crown prince of Sweden (and the chairman of the Swedish China Research Committee, Andersson's benefactor)
Gustaf VI Adolf visited Beijing on 22 October 1926. At a meeting planned for the prince, Andersson presented
lantern slides of Zdansky's fossil teeth. He was able to convince his friend, the Canadian palaeanthropologist
Davidson Black (who worked for the
Peking Union Medical College, which was funded by the
Rockefeller Foundation
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...
), the Chinese geologist
Weng Wenhao (the head of the China Geological Survey), and the prominent French palaeoanthropologist
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin to jointly take over study of Zhoukoudian. Andersson returned to Sweden to become the founding director of the
Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm. In the press coverage immediately after the meeting, the German-American geologist
Amadeus William Grabau for the first time publicly used the phrase "Peking Man" to refer to Zdansky's fossil teeth.
In 1927, Black was preoccupied with his duties to the college, so Andersson and Wiman sent one of Wiman's students,
Anders Birger Bohlin, to oversee excavation beginning on 16 April. On 16 October, Bohlin extracted another fossil human tooth (specimen K11337), which Black made the
holotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...
of a new
genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
and
species
A species () is often defined as the largest group of organisms in which any two individuals of the appropriate sexes or mating types can produce fertile offspring, typically by sexual reproduction. It is the basic unit of Taxonomy (biology), ...
called ''Sinanthropus pekinensis'' a few weeks later, accrediting the
authority
Authority is commonly understood as the legitimate power of a person or group of other people.
In a civil state, ''authority'' may be practiced by legislative, executive, and judicial branches of government,''The New Fontana Dictionary of M ...
to both himself and Zdansky.
This was the first anthropologically relevant find for nearly a year, and Teilhard questioned whether Peking Man was actually a human or some animal carnivore. According to the
biological anthropologist Noel T. Boaz and the palaeoanthropologist
Russell Ciochon, Black's decision to so quickly name a new genus may have been politically motivated—to secure further funding of the site. That year, Weng drafted an agreement with all Zhoukoudian scientists at the time that the Zhoukoudian remains would remain in China. In 1928, the Chinese government similarly clamped down on the exportation of Chinese artefacts and other archaeologically relevant materials to the West for study, viewing it as
archaeological looting; foreign scientists were instead encouraged to research these materials within China. In 1929, Black persuaded the Peking Union Medical College, the China Geological Survey, and the Rockefeller Foundation to found and fund the
Cenozoic Research Laboratory and ensure further study of Zhoukoudian.
[
]
On 2 December 1929, the Chinese anthropologist Pei Wenzhong discovered a fairly complete skullcap. Zhoukoudian proved to be a valuable archaeological site, with a preponderance of human fossils, stone tool
Stone tools have been used throughout human history but are most closely associated with prehistoric cultures and in particular those of the Stone Age. Stone tools may be made of either ground stone or knapped stone, the latter fashioned by a ...
s, and potential evidence of early fire use, becoming the most productive ''Homo erectus
''Homo erectus'' ( ) is an extinction, extinct species of Homo, archaic human from the Pleistocene, spanning nearly 2 million years. It is the first human species to evolve a humanlike body plan and human gait, gait, to early expansions of h ...
'' site in the world. An additional four rather complete skullcaps were discovered by 1936, three of which were unearthed over an 11-day period in November 1936, overseen by the Chinese palaeoanthropologist Jia Lanpo.[ Excavation employed from 10 to over 100 local labourers depending on the stage, who were paid five or six jiao per day, in contrast to local coal miners who received a pittance of 40 to 50 yuan annually. According to the historian Sigrid Schamlzer, Zhoukoudian employed some of the biggest names in Western and Chinese geology, palaeontology, palaeoanthropology, and archaeology, and facilitated an important discourse and collaboration between these two civilisations. After Black's sudden death in 1934 from his congenital heart defect, the Jewish German anatomist Franz Weidenreich, who had fled ]Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany, officially known as the German Reich and later the Greater German Reich, was the German Reich, German state between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party controlled the country, transforming it into a Totalit ...
, was selected by the Rockefeller Foundation to continue Black's work.[
]
Loss of specimens
Excavation of Zhoukoudian began to stall after the Marco Polo Bridge incident on 7 July 1937 and the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was fought between the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the Empire of Japan between 1937 and 1945, following a period of war localized to Manchuria that started in 1931. It is considered part ...
. Weidenreich had two crates made to store the Peking Man fossils, and transferred them from the Peking Union Medical College to an American bank vault to safeguard them from Imperial Japan
The Empire of Japan, also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was the Japanese nation state that existed from the Meiji Restoration on January 3, 1868, until the Constitution of Japan took effect on May 3, 1947. From Japan–Kor ...
ese forces. They were soon returned to the college and stored in a safe in Weidenreich's office, where Weidenreich worked with technicians and artists to make plaster casts and detailed illustrations for his monograph describing the fossils. As the war progressed, Weng and Weidenreich unsuccessfully tried to convince the head of the college, Henry S. Houghton, to authorise a transfer of the Peking Man fossils to the United States for safekeeping. Houghton dismissed Weidenreich in 1941, who took the casts and research notes with him to the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
with funding from the Rockefeller Foundation.
By September 1941, Weng and the president of the Rockefeller Foundation Raymond B. Fosdick had persuaded the US embassy to authorise the transfer of the Peking Man fossils. Representing at least 40 different individuals, the fossils were put into two wooden footlockers and were to be transported by the United States Marine Corps
The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines or simply the Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Department of Defense. It is responsible for conducting expeditionar ...
from the Peking Union Medical College to the SS ''President Harrison'' which was to dock at Qinhuangdao Port (near the Marine base camp Camp Holcomb), and eventually arrive at the American Museum of Natural History. En route to Qinhuangdao, the ship was attacked by Japanese warships and ran aground. Though there have been many attempts to locate the footlockers—including by offers of large cash rewards—it is unknown what happened to them after they left the college on 4 December 1941.
Rumours about the fate of the fossils range from being on board a sunken ship (such as the Japanese '' Awa Maru'') to being ground up for traditional Chinese medicine
Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is an alternative medicine, alternative medical practice drawn from traditional medicine in China. A large share of its claims are pseudoscientific, with the majority of treatments having no robust evidence ...
. The affair also provoked allegations of robbery against Japanese and American groups, especially during the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign in 1950 and 1951 to promote anti-American sentiment during the Korean War
The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
. US Marine corporal Richard Bowen recalled finding a box filled with bones one night in 1947 while digging a foxhole next to some stone barracks in Qinhuangdao. This happened during the Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was fought between the Kuomintang-led Nationalist government, government of the Republic of China (1912–1949), Republic of China and the forces of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Armed conflict continued intermitt ...
, during a siege of the city by the Communist Eighth Route Army
The Eighth Route Army (), officially titled as the List of Army Groups of the National Revolutionary Army, 18th Group Army, was a Field army, group army nominally under the banner of the National Revolutionary Army (NRA) of the Republic of Ch ...
, who were under fire from Nationalist gunboats. According to Wang Qingpu, the author of a report for the Chinese government on the history of the port, if Bowen's story is accurate, the most probable location of the fossils is , underneath roads, a warehouse, or a parking lot.
Excavation of the Zhoukoudian was so well documented that the loss of the original specimens did not greatly impact their study. According to Teilhard: "The Sinanthrope has been dated, described, measured, x-rayed, drawn, photographed and cast in plaster down to the last fossa, crista and tubercle .... The loss is more a matter of sentiment than a true tragedy for science." Four of the teeth from the original excavation period are still in the possession of the Palaeontological Museum of Uppsala University.
Mao and post-Mao eras
Excavation of Zhoukoudian halted from 1941 until the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War in 1949.[ Field work took place in 1949, 1951, 1958–1960, 1966, and 1978–1981. In 2004, Boaz noted that—given the meticulousness of the dig teams, going so far as to sieve out unidentifiable fragments as small as long—excavation of Zhoukoudian is generally considered to be complete.][
Throughout the Mao era, but especially in 1950 and 1951, Peking Man took on a central role in the restructuring of Chinese identity under the new government, specifically in an attempt to link the ideology of the Chinese Communist Party with human evolution. Peking Man was taught in educational books for all levels, ]popular science
Popular science (also called pop-science or popsci) is an interpretation of science intended for a general audience. While science journalism focuses on recent scientific developments, popular science is more broad ranging. It may be written ...
magazines and articles, museums, and at lectures given in workspaces, including factories. This campaign was primarily done to introduce the general populace (including those without advanced education) to Marxism
Marxism is a political philosophy and method of socioeconomic analysis. It uses a dialectical and materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to analyse class relations, social conflict, ...
, as well as to overturn widespread superstition
A superstition is any belief or practice considered by non-practitioners to be irrational or supernatural, attributed to fate or magic (supernatural), magic, perceived supernatural influence, or fear of that which is unknown. It is commonly app ...
s, traditions
A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common exa ...
, and creation myths. Nonetheless, research was constricted as scientists were compelled to fit new discoveries within the frame of Marxism. In 1960, the Cenozoic Research Laboratory was converted into an independent organisation known as the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS; ) is the national academy for natural sciences and the highest consultancy for science and technology of the People's Republic of China. It is the world's largest research organization, with 106 research i ...
, to better support excavation of Zhoukoudian. It was headed by Pei, Jia, and the Chinese palaeoanthropologist Yang Zhongjian.[
During the ]Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a Social movement, sociopolitical movement in the China, People's Republic of China (PRC). It was launched by Mao Zedong in 1966 and lasted until his de ...
from 1966 to 1976, all intellectuals, including scientists, came under persecution, and among other things were conscripted into manual labour as part of a campaign to turn "intellectuals into labourers and labourers into intellectuals", which impeded research. Though palaeoanthropology was still able to continue, the field became much less important to the Chinese government with its new resolve to become economically independent, and popular science topics switched from Peking Man and human evolution to production-related matters.
The United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
declared the Zhoukoudian Peking Man site to be a World Heritage Site
World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...
in 1987, and custody of the site was handed over from the IVPP to the city of Beijing (which has greater resources) in 2002.
The productivity of Zhoukoudian elicited strong palaeoanthropological interest in China, and 14 other ''H. erectus'' sites have since been discovered across the country in the Yuanmou, Tiandong, Jianshi, Yunxian, Lantian, Luonan, Yiyuan, Nanzhao, Nanjing
Nanjing or Nanking is the capital of Jiangsu, a province in East China. The city, which is located in the southwestern corner of the province, has 11 districts, an administrative area of , and a population of 9,423,400.
Situated in the Yang ...
, Hexian, and Dongzhi counties.[
]
Age and stratigraphy
The Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site currently sits above sea level. The fossil-bearing sediments are divided into 27 localities, and Peking Man is known from Locality 1 (Dragon Bone Hill). This deep locality is further divided into 17 layers (Layer 1 is the highest and youngest), of which fossils are found above Layer 13, and Peking Man from Layers 10–3. The fossil-bearing regions can also be organised into Loci A–O. Major stone tool accumulations occur in Layers 3 and 4, and the tops of Layers 8 and 10.[ The animal fossils in the locality suggest it dates to the ]Middle Pleistocene
The Chibanian, more widely known as the Middle Pleistocene (its previous informal name), is an Age (geology), age in the international geologic timescale or a Stage (stratigraphy), stage in chronostratigraphy, being a division of the Pleistocen ...
.[
There have been many attempts to more finely tune the date of each layer, starting in the late 1970s. In 1985, the Chinese scientist Zhao Shusen proposed the chronology: 700,000 years ago for Layer 13; 500,000 years ago for Layer 10; and 230,000 years ago for Layers 3. Though these timeframes are generally agreed upon, the exact date of each layer is subject to debate. In 2004, Shen Chengde and colleagues argued that Layer 3 was deposited 400,000 to 500,000 years ago; and Layer 10 between 600,000 and 800,000 years ago, during a mild glacial period.][
The earliest ''H. erectus'' fossils in all of China, Yuanmou Man, may date to 1.7 million years ago,] though stone tools from the Shangchen site in Lantian, central China, could extend the occupation of the region as far back as 2.12 million years ago.
Classification
Background
While Charles Darwin
Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English Natural history#Before 1900, naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all speci ...
had hypothesised in his 1871 '' Descent of Man'' that humans most likely evolved in Africa, many late-19th century evolutionary naturalists postulated that Asia was the birthplace of humankind, as it is midway between all continents via land routes or short sea crossings, providing optimal dispersal routes throughout the world. Among them was Ernst Haeckel
Ernst Heinrich Philipp August Haeckel (; ; 16 February 1834 – 9 August 1919) was a German zoologist, natural history, naturalist, eugenics, eugenicist, Philosophy, philosopher, physician, professor, marine biology, marine biologist and artist ...
, who argued that the first human species (which he proactively named "''Homo primigenius''") evolved on the now-disproven hypothetical continent "Lemuria
Lemuria (), or Limuria, was a continent proposed in 1864 by zoologist Philip Sclater, theorized to have sunk beneath the Indian Ocean, later appropriated by occultists in supposed accounts of human origins. The theory was discredited with the dis ...
" in what is now Southeast Asia, from a genus
Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...
he termed "'' Pithecanthropus''" ('ape-man'). "Lemuria" had supposedly sunk below the Indian Ocean
The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...
, so no fossils could be found to prove this. Nevertheless, Haeckel's model inspired Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois to join the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and search for the " missing link" in Java
Java is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea (a part of Pacific Ocean) to the north. With a population of 156.9 million people (including Madura) in mid 2024, proje ...
. He found a skullcap and a femur
The femur (; : femurs or femora ), or thigh bone is the only long bone, bone in the thigh — the region of the lower limb between the hip and the knee. In many quadrupeds, four-legged animals the femur is the upper bone of the hindleg.
The Femo ...
( Java Man) which he named "''P. erectus''" (using Haeckel's hypothetical genus name) and unfruitfully attempted to convince the European scientific community that he had found an upright-walking ape-man; they dismissed his findings as some kind of malformed non-human ape.
In regard to the ancestry of Far Eastern peoples, the French orientalist Albert Terrien de Lacouperie advanced the now discredited theory of Sino-Babylonianism, which placed the origin of Chinese civilisation in the Near East, namely Babylon. Terrien de Lacouperie argued, according to historical race concepts
The concept of race (human categorization), race as a categorization of anatomically modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') has an extensive history in Europe and the Americas. The contemporary word ''race'' itself is modern; historically it was used ...
and the idea of social degeneration, that the Chinese peoples had regressed compared to the superior races of Europe. This came under fire by the time Peking Man was discovered, when China was in the midst of the New Culture Movement
The New Culture Movement was a progressivism, progressive sociopolitical movement in China during the 1910s and 1920s. Participants criticized many aspects of traditional Chinese society, in favor of new formulations of Chinese culture inform ...
and surging nationalism subsequent to the 1911 Revolution
The 1911 Revolution, also known as the Xinhai Revolution or Hsinhai Revolution, ended China's last imperial dynasty, the Qing dynasty, and led to the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC). The revolution was the culmination of a decade ...
that ended the Qing dynasty
The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing, was a Manchu-led Dynasties of China, imperial dynasty of China and an early modern empire in East Asia. The last imperial dynasty in Chinese history, the Qing dynasty was preceded by the ...
and subsequent establishment of the Republic of China
Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
. These ideologies not only aimed to remove imperialist influences, but also to replace ancient Chinese traditions and superstitions with western science to modernise the country, and lift its standing on the world stage to that of Europe.
"Out of Asia" theory
Unlike previously discovered extinct human species, notably the Neanderthal
Neanderthals ( ; ''Homo neanderthalensis'' or sometimes ''H. sapiens neanderthalensis'') are an extinction, extinct group of archaic humans who inhabited Europe and Western and Central Asia during the Middle Pleistocene, Middle to Late Plei ...
and Java Man, the Peking Man was readily accepted into the human family tree. In the West, this was aided by a popularising hypothesis for the origin of humanity in Central Asia, championed primarily by the American palaeontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn and his apprentice William Diller Matthew. They believed that Asia was the "mother of continents", and that the rising of the Himalayas
The Himalayas, or Himalaya ( ), is a mountain range in Asia, separating the plains of the Indian subcontinent from the Tibetan Plateau. The range has some of the Earth's highest peaks, including the highest, Mount Everest. More than list of h ...
and Tibet
Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...
and subsequent drying of the region forced human ancestors to become terrestrial and bipedal
Bipedalism is a form of terrestrial locomotion where an animal moves by means of its two rear (or lower) limbs or legs. An animal or machine that usually moves in a bipedal manner is known as a biped , meaning 'two feet' (from Latin ''bis'' ...
. They also believed that populations which retreated to the tropics—namely Dubois' Java Man and the " Negroid race"—substantially regressed. This required them to reject Sir Raymond Dart
Raymond Arthur Dart (4 February 1893 – 22 November 1988) was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil found of '' Australopithecus africanus'', an extinct hominin ...
's far more ancient South African Taung child ('' Australopithecus africanus'') as a human ancestor when he described it in 1925, favouring Charles Dawson's 1912 hoax " Piltdown Man" from Britain.[
]
The Peking Man, with a brain volume much larger than that of living apes, was used to further invalidate African or European origin models. Peking Man's importance in human evolution was championed by Grabau in the 1930s, who (much like Osborn) contended that the lifting of the Himalayas caused the emergence of proto-humans ("''Protanthropus''") in the Miocene
The Miocene ( ) is the first epoch (geology), geological epoch of the Neogene Period and extends from about (Ma). The Miocene was named by Scottish geologist Charles Lyell; the name comes from the Greek words (', "less") and (', "new") and mea ...
, who then dispersed during the Pliocene
The Pliocene ( ; also Pleiocene) is the epoch (geology), epoch in the geologic time scale that extends from 5.33 to 2.58[Tarim Basin
The Tarim Basin is an endorheic basin in Xinjiang, Northwestern China occupying an area of about and one of the largest basins in Northwest China.Chen, Yaning, et al. "Regional climate change and its effects on river runoff in the Tarim Basin, Ch ...](_blank)
in Northwestern China where they learned to control fire and make stone tools. "''Protanthropus''" then reached Eastern China and evolved into "''Sinanthropus''"; and from there went out to colonise the rest of the Old World, where it evolved into "''Pithecanthropus''" in Southeast Asia, "''Eoanthropus''" (Piltdown Man) in Europe, and ''Homo
''Homo'' () is a genus of great ape (family Hominidae) that emerged from the genus ''Australopithecus'' and encompasses only a single extant species, ''Homo sapiens'' (modern humans), along with a number of extinct species (collectively called ...
'' (Kanam Mandible) in Africa. Citing degeneration theory, Grabau believed that "''Pithecanthropus''" and African ''Homo'' had regressed to a more primitive state. To explain the paucity of stone tools in Asia compared to Europe (an apparent contradiction if humans had occupied Asia for longer), he also stated that Pleistocene
The Pleistocene ( ; referred to colloquially as the ''ice age, Ice Age'') is the geological epoch (geology), epoch that lasted from to 11,700 years ago, spanning the Earth's most recent period of repeated glaciations. Before a change was fin ...
Central Asia was too cold to permit back-migration by early modern human
Early modern human (EMH), or anatomically modern human (AMH), are terms used to distinguish ''Homo sapiens'' (Homo sapiens sapiens, sometimes ''Homo sapiens sapiens'') that are Human anatomy, anatomically consistent with the Human variability, r ...
s or Neanderthals (primitive ''Homo'') until the Neolithic
The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...
. The Central Asia model was the leading consensus of the time.[
Peking Man became an important matter of national pride, and was used to extend the antiquity of the Chinese people and the occupation of the region to 500,000 years ago, with discussions of human evolution becoming progressively Sinocentric even in Europe. In the 1930s, Weidenreich began arguing that Peking Man was ancestral to the " Mongoloid race", forwarding his polycentric hypothesis, where local populations of archaic humans evolved into the local modern humans, as opposed to every modern population sharing an anatomically modern ancestor ( polygenism). Other scientists working on the site made no such claims.][ The sentiment that all Chinese ethnic groups—including the Han, Tibetans, and Mongols—were indigenous to the area for such a long time became more popular during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the occupation of China by Japan.][ By the Mao era, Peking Man was ubiquitously heralded as a human ancestor in China.
]
"''Sinanthropus''"
Black classified the Peking Man material in 1927 as a new genus and species—"''Sinanthropus pekinensis''"—based on only three teeth. Initially, palaeoanthropologists assumed that expansion of the braincase was the first major innovation in human evolution away from apes. Consequently, because he characterised Peking Man as a human ancestor, Black initially believed that Peking Man would be more similar to Piltdown Man (with a big brain and modern skullcap but an apelike jaw) than Java Man (which at the time was characterised as a giant gibbon by Dubois). When the first Peking Man skullcap was discovered in 1929, Black and his mentor Sir Grafton Elliot Smith noted "a curious blend of characters" between Peking Man, Java Man, and Piltdown Man. They were unsure how to resolve these relationships.
Weidenreich, on the other hand, dismissed Piltdown Man as a chimera of a modern human skull and an orangutan jaw in 1923, and also argued that Java Man had a humanlike body plan. In 1935, he claimed the differences between Peking Man and Java Man, "can be due at most to racial variation". Following the German-Dutch palaeontologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald's further Java Man discoveries in Mojokerto and Sangiran, von Koenigswald and Weidenreich declared in a 1939 paper that Java Man and Peking Man are, "related to each other in the same way as two different races of present mankind, which may also display certain variations in the degree of their advancement."
In 1940, Weidenreich likewise suggested that, if Peking Man ("''Sinanthropus pekinensis''") and Java Man ("''Pithecanthropus erectus''") are ancestral to different modern human populations (classified into several subspecies of ''Homo sapiens''), then they should be subsumed under ''Homo'' as subspecies of the same pre-modern species as ''H. erectus pekinensis'' and "''H. e. javanensis''", respectively. Nonetheless, Weidenreich continued using "''Sinanthropus''" (and "''Pithecanthropus''") until his death in 1948 because he saw it "just as a name without any 'generic' or 'specific' meaning, or in other words, as a 'latinization' of Peking Man." In 1945, the British anatomist Wilfrid Le Gros Clark argued that, in accordance with nomenclature codes
Nomenclature codes or codes of nomenclature are the various rulebooks that govern the naming of living organisms. Standardizing the scientific names of biological organisms allows researchers to discuss findings (including the discovery of new s ...
, the correct name should be "''Pithecanthropus pekinensis''". Still, especially after the Holocaust
The Holocaust (), known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (), was the genocide of History of the Jews in Europe, European Jews during World War II. From 1941 to 1945, Nazi Germany and Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy ...
, Weidenreich and many of his colleagues desired to reform anthropology away from its fixation on racial distinctness and purity. Weidenreich discussed applying the burgeoning field of genetics
Genetics is the study of genes, genetic variation, and heredity in organisms.Hartl D, Jones E (2005) It is an important branch in biology because heredity is vital to organisms' evolution. Gregor Mendel, a Moravian Augustinians, Augustinian ...
to physical anthropology with namely Theodosius Dobzhansky and Sherwood Washburn, as modern evolutionary synthesis was being formulated.
In 1950, the German-American evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr had entered the field of anthropology, and, surveying a "bewildering diversity of names," decided to subsume human fossils into three species of ''Homo'': "''H. transvaalensis''" (the australopithecines), ''H. erectus'' (including "''Sinanthropus''", "''Pithecanthropus''", and various other Asian, African, and European taxa), and ''H. sapiens'' (including anything younger than ''H. erectus'', such as modern humans and Neanderthals), as had been broadly recommended by many prior authors. He classified Peking Man as ''H. e. pekinensis''. Mayr defined these species as a sequential lineage, with each species evolving into the next ( chronospecies). Though later Mayr changed his opinion on the australopithecines (recognising ''Australopithecus
''Australopithecus'' (, ; or (, ) is a genus of early hominins that existed in Africa during the Pliocene and Early Pleistocene. The genera ''Homo'' (which includes modern humans), ''Paranthropus'', and ''Kenyanthropus'' evolved from some ''Aus ...
''), his more conservative view of archaic human diversity became widely adopted in the subsequent decades. Thus, Peking Man was considered a human ancestor in both Western and Eastern thought.
"Out of Africa" theory
During the Mao era, Western scientists suspected that Chinese publications were distorted by propaganda
Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to influence or persuade an audience to further an agenda, which may not be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using loaded l ...
. During the 1960s and 1970s, the position of the more ancient ''Australopithecus'' in human evolution once again became a centre of debate. In China, Wu Rukang argued that the African ''Australopithecus'' was the "missing link" between apes and humans, but was met with much derision from Chinese peers. Following the reform and opening up of China with the rise of Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping also Romanization of Chinese, romanised as Teng Hsiao-p'ing; born Xiansheng (). (22 August 190419 February 1997) was a Chinese statesman, revolutionary, and political theorist who served as the paramount leader of the People's R ...
in 1978, Western works contradictory to tenets of Maoist ideology were circulated throughout China, radically altering Eastern anthropological discussions. In the late 20th century, human evolution had become Afrocentric with the gradual acceptance of ''Australopithecus'' as human ancestors, and the consequent marginalisation of Peking Man,[ especially as older fossils of ''H. erectus'' were being unearthed in Africa, first by Kenyan archaeologist Louis Leakey in 1960 with Olduvai Hominin 9. ''H. erectus'' is now largely considered to have evolved in Africa and later spread to other continents.
To counter the declining interest of Eastern palaeoanthropology in academia with the rise of Afrocentrism, many Chinese scientists commonly advanced Sinocentric and often polygenic arguments. They posited the antiquity of racial distinctness before the evolution and dispersal of modern humans, as well as the racial continuity between local ''H. erectus'' and modern descendent races; for example, they contended that "typically 'Mongoloid' features" such as shovel-shaped incisors carried over from Peking Man to modern Chinese people. They often cited the 2-million-year-old Wushan Man from central China, which is no longer classified as a human, and asserted that several Chinese apes millions of years old were human ancestors. Jia proposed that the earliest human species evolved on the Tibetan Plateau; the adjacent province of ]Guizhou
)
, image_skyline =
, image_caption =
, image_map = Guizhou in China (+all claims hatched).svg
, mapsize = 275px
, map_alt = Map showing the location of Guizhou Province
, map_caption = Map s ...
was another popularly proposed genesis point. Various late Middle Pleistocene Chinese specimens have been argued, such as by the Chinese palaeoanthropologist Wu Xinzhi, to represent hybrid populations between Peking Man and other ancestors of modern humans, such as the Dali Man or the Jinniushan Man. In the 1970s, the travelling museum exhibit "The Exhibition of Archaeological Finds of the People's Republic of China"—organised by the Chinese Communist Party
The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...
(CCP) to tour around Western Europe, the US, and Canada—painted Peking Man and Lantian Man as the "forefathers of the Chinese people", playing a central role in the story of human evolution, and emphasising the antiquity of the Chinese people. Additionally, at least since the mid-1990s, the CCP has utilised Peking Man as an instrument of its racial nationalist discourse.
Peking Man's ancestral position is still widely maintained among especially Chinese scientists using the assimilation model, wherein archaic humans such as Peking Man interbred with and were effectively absorbed into modern human populations in their respective locations. According to this model, Peking Man has lent some ancestry to modern Chinese populations.[ Palaeogenetic analyses—the first in 2010—have reported that all humans whose ancestry lies beyond Sub-Saharan Africa contain genes from the archaic Neanderthals and Denisovans indicating early modern humans interbred with archaic humans. The common ancestor of Neanderthals and Denisovans in turn interbred with another archaic species even further removed from modern humans.] Still, East Asian ''H. erectus'' from China and Indonesia are now usually characterised as relict populations which had little interaction with Western ''H. erectus'' or later ''Homo'' species.[
]
Phylogeny
Many Chinese ''H. erectus'' fossils were given a unique subspecies name based on minute anatomical differences. As the definition of "subspecies" tightened in the late 20th century, it became impossible to justify all of these names. In general, subspecies names for ''H. erectus'' are now used for convenience to indicate time and region rather than specific anatomical trends. The name ''H. e. pekinensis'' may extend to all Chinese ''H. erectus'' but is usually used to refer only to Zhoukoudian.
The anatomy of Chinese ''H. erectus'' specimens varies regionally and over time, but this variation is subtle and difficult to assess given how fragmentary ''H. erectus'' remains are both in and out of China. Northern Chinese specimens (namely Peking Man and Nanjing Man) are distinct in the narrowness of the skull, but ''H. erectus'' skull shape is poorly documented elsewhere in China. Some authors have suggested that the anatomical peculiarities of the Zhoukoudian specimens indicate speciation rather than a geographic cline
Cline may refer to:
Science
* Cline (biology), a measurable gradient in a single trait in a species across its geographical range
* Cline (hydrology), a fluid layer with a property that varies
* Cline (mathematics) or generalised circle, a ci ...
, and consider Peking Man as a separate species, ''H. pekinensis''.
''H. erectus'' may have made multiple different dispersals out of Africa to the Far East, with the population represented by the Indonesian Sangiran site possibly being more closely related to Western ''H. erectus'' than to Peking Man. A population related to Peking Man may have later interbred with Southeast Asian ''H. erectus'', since the younger teeth at Sangiran are much smaller than the older ones—more like those of Peking Man's—but tooth reduction could have happened for other reasons.
A 2021 phylogeny of ''H. erectus'' using tip dating:
Anatomy
Peking Man is known from 13 skull and cranial fragments, 15 mandible
In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla).
The jawbone i ...
s (lower jawbone), 157 isolated and ''in situ'' teeth, an atlas
An atlas is a collection of maps; it is typically a bundle of world map, maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth. Advances in astronomy have also resulted in atlases of the celestial sphere or of other planets.
Atlases have traditio ...
(the first neck vertebra), a clavicle, 3 humeri (upper arm bones), potentially 2 iliac fragments (the hip), 7 femora, a tibia
The tibia (; : tibiae or tibias), also known as the shinbone or shankbone, is the larger, stronger, and anterior (frontal) of the two Leg bones, bones in the leg below the knee in vertebrates (the other being the fibula, behind and to the outsi ...
(shinbone), and a lunate bone (a wrist bone). The material may represent as many as 40 individuals.[
Peking Man and anatomically similar East Asian contemporaries are sometimes referred to as classic ''H. erectus''.][
]
Skull
In 1937, Weidenreich and his assistant, the sculptor Lucile Swan, attempted to reconstruct a complete skull, but only considered a skullcap (Skull XI), a left maxillary (upper jaw) fragment (Skull XII/III), and a right mandibular (lower jaw) fragment, which are presumably specimens of females based on their smaller size. Though larger, presumably male specimens are much more numerous, they probably chose female specimens because a male maxilla would not be discovered until 1943.[ Swan also made a lifelike bust of Peking Man based on this skull, nicknamed "Nellie".
In 1996, the anthropologists Ian Tattersall and Gary Sawyer revised the skull with high-quality casts of six presumed-male specimens and three isolated teeth (as the original fossils were lost). With this extended sample, virtually the entire skull could be more accurately restored, except the bottom margin of the piriform aperture (the nose hole). They deflated the cheeks and inflated the ]lateral
Lateral is a geometric term of location which may also refer to:
Biology and healthcare
* Lateral (anatomy), a term of location meaning "towards the side"
* Lateral cricoarytenoid muscle, an intrinsic muscle of the larynx
* Lateral release ( ...
margins of the brow ridge, which caused the nose to project out even farther (increased midfacial prognathism), though they reduced subnasal prognathism. Overall, compared to that of Weidenreich and Swan, their reconstruction is less apomorphic (specialised) than other Asian or African ''H. erectus'' specimens.[
]
Cranial vault
Weidenreich characterised the Peking Man skull as relatively low, ellipsoid
An ellipsoid is a surface that can be obtained from a sphere by deforming it by means of directional Scaling (geometry), scalings, or more generally, of an affine transformation.
An ellipsoid is a quadric surface; that is, a Surface (mathemat ...
, and long. The breadth is greatest at the ears but decreases frontwards, especially at the forehead. There is marked post-orbital constriction, and the skull is circumscribed by a bony torus
In geometry, a torus (: tori or toruses) is a surface of revolution generated by revolving a circle in three-dimensional space one full revolution about an axis that is coplanarity, coplanar with the circle. The main types of toruses inclu ...
which is strongest at the brow ridge (supraorbital torus) and at the back of the skull (occipital torus). All specimens have an eminence projecting just above the brow ridge, developed to varying degrees, which is not found in any other ''H. erectus'' population. The frontal sinuses are restricted to the nasal area below the brows, and consequently the brow ridge is completely solid, unlike that of Java Man. The eye sockets are wide. The superior orbital fissure in the eye socket was probably a small opening like in non-human apes rather than a long slit like in modern humans. The nasal bones between the eyes are double the width of those of the average modern human, though not as wide as those of Neanderthals. Weidenreich suggested Peking Man had a short, broad nose.
Peking Man also features a sagittal keel running across the midline, highest when it intersects the coronal suture
The coronal suture is a dense, fibrous connective tissue joint that separates the two parietal bones from the frontal bone of the skull.
Structure
The coronal suture lies between the paired parietal bones and the frontal bone of the skull ...
halfway across, and recedes around the obelion (near the base of the parietal bone
The parietal bones ( ) are two bones in the skull which, when joined at a fibrous joint known as a cranial suture, form the sides and roof of the neurocranium. In humans, each bone is roughly quadrilateral in form, and has two surfaces, four bord ...
s). All skulls feature an equally developed keel (proportionally), including subadult and presumed-female specimens; there are no infant specimens. The keel produces a depression on either side, which accentuates the parietal eminence. The temporal lines, which arc in pairs across either side of the skull, often merge into a single ridge near the skull midline. The squamous part of temporal bone (the flat region) is positioned quite low, and the temporal fossa (the depression between the temporal lines and cheek) is relatively narrow. The mastoid part of the temporal bone features a high crest above which overhangs the ear canal
The ear canal (external acoustic meatus, external auditory meatus, EAM) is a pathway running from the outer ear to the middle ear. The adult human ear canal extends from the auricle to the eardrum and is about in length and in diameter.
S ...
. The crest accentuates the mastoid process, which bends inwards as opposed to the modern human condition of being vertical; bending is much more pronounced in presumed-male specimens. Peking Man lacks a true postglenoid process (a bony projection behind the jaw hinge); instead of being elongated, it is merely a low, triangular projection with a broad base. The zygomatic bones (cheekbones) project far off the face, and would have been visible when viewing the skull from the top. They project as far as , whereas modern humans do not exceed .
At the back of the skull, the occipital torus extends in a relatively straight line, but curves downward at the sides of the skull. The occipital torus can be bordered by sulci (furrows) on the top and bottom margins (for muscle attachment), and the bottom margin of the torus gradually fades. The midpoint of the torus features an additional prominence, the occipital bun.
Brain
The brain capacities of the seven Peking Man skulls for which the metric is measurable range from , with an average of about . This is within the range of variation for modern humans. Asian ''H. erectus'' overall are rather big-brained, averaging roughly .
The endocast (the cast of the inside of the braincase) is ovoid in top-view. Due to post-orbital constriction, the frontal lobe
The frontal lobe is the largest of the four major lobes of the brain in mammals, and is located at the front of each cerebral hemisphere (in front of the parietal lobe and the temporal lobe). It is parted from the parietal lobe by a Sulcus (neur ...
is narrowed like in other ''H. erectus''. The parietal lobe
The parietal lobe is one of the four Lobes of the brain, major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The parietal lobe is positioned above the temporal lobe and behind the frontal lobe and central sulcus.
The parietal lobe integra ...
s are depressed unlike Javan and African ''H. erectus'' or modern humans, though this seems to be somewhat variable among the Peking Man material. The temporal lobe
The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain.
The temporal lobe is involved in pr ...
s are narrow and slender unlike most other human species. The occipital lobes are flattened dorsoventrally (from top to bottom) and strongly project backwards which is a rather variable trait among archaic human populations. The cerebellum
The cerebellum (: cerebella or cerebellums; Latin for 'little brain') is a major feature of the hindbrain of all vertebrates. Although usually smaller than the cerebrum, in some animals such as the mormyrid fishes it may be as large as it or eve ...
, compared to that of modern humans, is not as globular, and the lobes diverge more strongly from the midline like other archaic humans.
Mouth
Peking Man has remarkably defined canine juga (a bony ridge corresponding to the tooth root). There is subnasal prognathism (the upper jaw juts out). The maxilla (upper jaw) commonly features exostoses (bony lumps) in the molar region, which infrequently occurs in modern humans (>6%). Like modern humans and Neanderthals but unlike Java Man, Peking Man has a long, rugose palate (roof of the mouth). The mandible
In jawed vertebrates, the mandible (from the Latin ''mandibula'', 'for chewing'), lower jaw, or jawbone is a bone that makes up the lowerand typically more mobilecomponent of the mouth (the upper jaw being known as the maxilla).
The jawbone i ...
(lower jaw) is rather big and, like other archaic humans, lacks a chin. The extramolar sulci bordering the cheek side of the molars are broad. Some mandibles feature a torus on the tongue side, or multiple mental foramina.
The dental arches (tooth rows) are U-shaped.[ The incisors feature an eminence at the base, finger-like ridges on the tongue-side, and for the upper ones marked shovelling (the tooth strongly bends in).][ The mandibular incisors are narrow.][ Weidenreich originally restored the teeth as peg-like, but Tattersall and Sawyer found the teeth to be much larger and obtrusive.][ Like other ''H. erectus'', the premolars are ellipsoid and asymmetrical, but the first premolar (P3) frequently has three roots instead of the more common two. The molar crowns exhibit several extraneous ridges in addition to the essential cusps, which produced a dendritic (branching) enamel- dentine junction, which has only been documented in Chinese ''H. erectus''. M1 is rather long, and M2 is round.]
The upper incisors of Peking Man and other Chinese ''H. erectus'' feature marked shovelling, more prominent than in other ''H. erectus'' populations.[ Shovelling also usually occurs in Neanderthals and less intensely in many early modern human specimens across Europe, Africa, and Asia.
]
Postcranium
Because the archaeological record of East Asia is comparatively poor, the post-cranial anatomy of ''H. erectus'' is largely based on the adolescent African specimen Turkana Boy, as well as a few other isolated skeletons from Africa and Western Eurasia.[
Externally, the Peking Man humerus is like that of modern humans, and exhibits exceptionally developed muscle attachments, but the diaphysis (shaft) is more slender.][ The lunate bone (in the wrist) is modern humanlike, though proportionally small and broad.][
Compared to an average modern human, the ]femur
The femur (; : femurs or femora ), or thigh bone is the only long bone, bone in the thigh — the region of the lower limb between the hip and the knee. In many quadrupeds, four-legged animals the femur is the upper bone of the hindleg.
The Femo ...
is much stouter, flatter, slenderer, and straighter; maximum curvature occurs nearer the knee joint instead of at the mid-shaft. The anteposterior (from front to back) diameter is smaller than the transverse (from left to right) diameter. The femoral neck was probably truncated like in other archaic humans and non-human apes. The subtrochanteric crest terminates up at the greater trochanter with a bony growth, commonly exhibited in Neanderthals. These traits are not outside the range of variation for modern humans, though are quite rare.
Body size
The torso is poorly known, but because the limbs and clavicle are proportioned like those of modern humans, it is typically assumed the rest of the body was as well. Working under this assumption, living body dimension reconstructions include:
*In 1938, Weidenreich reconstructed a presumed-female femur to be in length in life, which would equate to a female height of . He speculated males averaged .
*In 1944, Weidenreich reconstructed a presumed-male femur to be long, equating to a male height of . He speculated an average female height of .[
*In 2018, the Chinese palaeoanthropologist Song Xing estimated the living weight for Humeri II and III as about , Femur I , Femur IV , and Femur VI . Weidenreich assumed all these represent males.
Northerly ''H. erectus'' populations tend to be shorter than tropical populations, with colder climate populations including Zhoukoudian and Dmanisi averaging roughly , and hotter climate populations including African and Javan ''H. erectus'' .][
]
Bone thickness
The strongly developed tori and crests greatly fortify the skull, and the braincase is extremely thickened like in other ''H. erectus''. Similar thickening can also rarely occur in modern humans when the diploë (the spongy cancellous layer between the two hard cortical layers of bone in the skull) abnormally expands, but for Peking Man, all three layers of cranial bone have equally thickened.
The long bone
The long bones are those that are longer than they are wide. They are one of five types of bones: long, short, flat, irregular and sesamoid. Long bones, especially the femur and tibia, are subjected to most of the load during daily activities ...
s of all ''H. erectus'' have thickened cortical bone and consequently narrowed medullary cavities (where the bone marrow is stored). Peking Man has much thicker humeri than African ''H. erectus''. At maximum constriction at the mid-shaft, the femoral walls of Peking Man take up about 90% of the interior space, as opposed to only 75% in modern humans. For the lateral walls (towards the sides), the exorbitant thickness sharply reduces above the greater trochanter, whereas the medial walls (towards the middle) are three times as thick as those of modern humans. In modern humans, the femoral head features two main strips of cancellous bone (spongy interior bone) that converge into a triangle ( Ward's triangle), which is absent in Peking Man, likely due to the intense thickening of the cortical bone.
In 1946, Weidenreich posited an unpopular hypothesis that Peking Man (and Java Man) inherited the thick bones from gigantic ancestors (plesiomorphy
In phylogenetics, a plesiomorphy ("near form") and symplesiomorphy are synonyms for an ancestral Phenotypic trait, character shared by all members of a clade, which does not distinguish the clade from other clades.
Plesiomorphy, symplesiomorph ...
), evidenced by von Koenigswald's enormous '' Meganthropus'' and '' Gigantopithecus'', which at the time were classified as ancient human ancestors. Other explanations include a far more violent and impact-prone lifestyle than other ''Homo'', or pathological nutrient deficiencies causing hypoparathyroidism. The supraorbital torus thickens with age, and may be a response to bending
In applied mechanics, bending (also known as flexure) characterizes the behavior of a slender structural element subjected to an external Structural load, load applied perpendicularly to a longitudinal axis of the element.
The structural eleme ...
stresses from habitual loading of the front teeth.
Gallery
File:Sinanthropus Skulls I and II.png, Skulls I and II
File:Sinanthropus Skull II.png, Skull II
Sinanthropus Skull III.png, Skull III
File:Sinanthropus Skulls IV anf V.png, Skulls IV and V
File:Sinanthropus Skulls V and VI.png, Skulls V and VI
File:Sinanthropus Skulls VI and VII.png, Skulls VI and VII
File:Sinanthropus Skulls VIII and IX.png, Skulls VIII and IX
File:Sinanthropus Skull X.png, Skull X
File:Sinanthropus Skull XI.png, Skull XI
File:Sinanthropus Skull XII.png, Skull XII
Sinanthropus Femur I.png, Femur I
Sinanthropus Femora I and II.png, Femora I and II
Sinanthropus Femur III.png, Femur III
Sinanthropus Femur IV.png, Femur IV
Sinanthropus Femora V and VI.png, Femora V and VI
Sinanthropus Femur VI.png, Femur VI
Sinanthropus Femur VII.png, Femur VII
Sinanthropus Humerus I.png, Humerus I
Sinanthropus Humerus II.png, Humerus II
Sinanthropus clavicle.png, Clavicle I
Culture
Palaeoenvironment
The mammal assemblage of the Zhoukoudian site indicates three major environmental units: Layers 11–10—a cold and dry, grassland environment; Layers 9–5—a warm, forested environment; and Layers 4–1—another cold and dry, grassland environment.
The mammal assemblage includes macaques, the Zhoukoudian wolf, the Asian black bear, the brown bear, the rhino '' Dicerorhinus choukoutienensis'', the woolly rhinoceros, the horse '' Equus sanmeniensis'', the Siberian musk deer
The Siberian musk deer (''Moschus moschiferus'') is a musk deer found in the mountain forests of Northeast Asia. It is most common in the taiga of southern Siberia, but is also found in parts of Mongolia, Inner Mongolia, Manchuria and the Korean ...
, the giant deer '' Sinomegaceros pachyosteus'', sheep, bison
A bison (: bison) is a large bovine in the genus ''Bison'' (from Greek, meaning 'wild ox') within the tribe Bovini. Two extant taxon, extant and numerous extinction, extinct species are recognised.
Of the two surviving species, the American ...
, the Asian straight-tusked elephant, bats, pika, rodent
Rodents (from Latin , 'to gnaw') are mammals of the Order (biology), order Rodentia ( ), which are characterized by a single pair of continuously growing incisors in each of the upper and Mandible, lower jaws. About 40% of all mammal specie ...
s, and shrew
Shrews ( family Soricidae) are small mole-like mammals classified in the order Eulipotyphla. True shrews are not to be confused with treeshrews, otter shrews, elephant shrews, West Indies shrews, or marsupial shrews, which belong to dif ...
s. The mammal assemblage of Layers 4–3 is broadly similar to that of Layers 9–8, in addition to several warm-to-mild climate steppe and forest creatures, including the raccoon dog '' Nyctereutes sinensis'', the dhole '' Cuon antiquus'', the corsac fox, the Asian badger, wolverines, the giant hyena '' Pachycrocuta'', the saber-toothed cat '' Machairodus inexpectatus'', the tiger
The tiger (''Panthera tigris'') is a large Felidae, cat and a member of the genus ''Panthera'' native to Asia. It has a powerful, muscular body with a large head and paws, a long tail and orange fur with black, mostly vertical stripes. It is ...
, the leopard, sika deer, the antelope '' Spirocerus peii'', and the water buffalo '' Bubalus teilhardi''.[ The Zhoukoudian fauna are not entirely exclusive to either glacial or ]interglacial
An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene i ...
periods.
''H. erectus'' seems to have typically favoured open environments. It is debated if Peking Man occupied the region during colder glacial periods or only took residence during warmer interglacials, tied to the uncertain chronology of Zhoukoudian, as well as arguments regarding fire usage, clothing technology, and hunting ability.[ Given the abundance of deer remains, it was early on assumed Peking Man was a prolific deer hunter, but since the establishment of non-human carnivores as major taphonomic agents, the dependence on hunting has become a controversial topic. Most of the Peking Man fossils were at least fed upon by likely hyenas.][ Nonetheless, some of the animal fossils seem to have been modified by humans. In 1986, the American archaeologist Lewis Binford and colleagues reported a few horse fossils with cutmarks left by stone tools, and two upper premolars from Layer 4 appearing to him to have been burned while still fresh, which he ascribed to horse-head roasting. Binford believed that Peking Man was simply scavenging from hyenas because all of the tool cuts he analysed were always overlapping hyena gnaw marks, instead of vice versa.][ Zhoukoudian also preserves the remains of edible plants, nuts, and seeds that Peking Man may have eaten: Chinese hackberry, ]walnut
A walnut is the edible seed of any tree of the genus '' Juglans'' (family Juglandaceae), particularly the Persian or English walnut, '' Juglans regia''. They are accessory fruit because the outer covering of the fruit is technically an i ...
, hazelnut, pine
A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae.
''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...
, elm, and rambler rose.[
''H. erectus'', a specialist in woodland and savannah biomes, likely went extinct with the takeover of tropical rainforests. From marine isotope stages 12 to 10 (roughly 340,000 to 500,000 years ago), the Chinese archaeological record becomes dominated by "late-archaic" non-''erectus'' fossils, potentially representing multiple species including the Denisovans, '' H. longi'', and '' H. juluensis''.][ Peking Man's final stay at Zhoukoudian may have taken place between 230,000 and 400,000 years ago, with a more precise interval being difficult to arrive at.][
]
Occupation of the cave
Because human remains (encompassing males, females, and children), tools, and potential evidence of fire were found in so many layers, it has often been assumed Peking Man lived in the Zhoukoudian cave site for hundreds of thousands of years.[
In 1929, the French archaeologist ]Henri Breuil
Henri Édouard Prosper Breuil (28 February 1877 – 14 August 1961), often referred to as Abbé Breuil (), was a French Catholic Church, Catholic priest, archaeologist, anthropologist, ethnologist and geologist. He studied cave art in the Somme ( ...
suggested the overabundance of skulls compared to body remains is conspicuous, and hypothesised the remains represent the trophies of cannibalistic headhunters, either a band of ''H. erectus'' or a more "advanced" species of human. In 1937, the French palaeoanthropologist Marcellin Boule believed the Peking Man brain was insufficiently evolved for such behaviour, based on the brain size, and suggested the skulls belonged to a primitive species and the limbs to a more evolved one, the latter manufacturing stone tools and cannibalising the former. Weidenreich did not believe brain size could be a measure of cultural complexity, but, in 1939, he detailed the pathology
Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in general, incorporating a wide range of biology research fields and medical practices. However, when used in the context of modern medical treatme ...
of the Peking Man fossils and came to the conclusion of cannibalism or headhunting. The majority of the remains bear evidence of scars or injuries which he ascribed to attacks from clubs or stone tools; all the skulls have broken-in bases which he believed was done to extract the brain; and the femora have lengthwise splits, which he supposed was done to harvest the bone marrow.
Weidenreich's sentiments became widely popular. Another school of thought, proposed by Pei in 1929, held that individuals were dragged in by hyenas. In 1939, pioneering the field of taphonomy (the study of fossilisation), the German palaeontologist highlighted parallels between the Zhoukoudian fossils and cow bones gnawed by hyenas he studied at the Vienna Zoo. Weidenreich subsequently conceded in 1941 that the breaking-off of the epiphyses of long bones is most likely due to hyena activity, but he was unconvinced that hyenas broke open the skull base or were capable of creating the long splits in the robust femora, still ascribing those to stone-tool-wielding cannibals. In addition to carnivore damage, Skull V bears a lesion on the right brow consistent with non-fatal blunt force trauma, which could have been caused by a human attack, or some accidental bump or fall.
By the mid-20th century, the hypothesis that Peking Man inhabited the cave once again became the mainstay, modeled around Jia's 1975 book ''The Cave Home of Peking Man''.[ In 1985, Binford and the Chinese palaeoanthropologist Ho Chuan Kun instead hypothesised that Zhoukoudian was a "trap" which humans and animals fell into. They further proposed that deer remains, earlier assumed to have been Peking Man's prey, were instead predominantly carried in by the giant hyena ''Pachycrocuta'', and that ash was deposited by naturally occurring ]wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, or a bushfire is an unplanned and uncontrolled fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire may be more specifically identified as a ...
s fueled by bat guano, as they did not believe any human species had yet mastered hunting or fire at this time. Evidence of fire usage would indicate occupation of the cave.
In 2000, Boaz and colleagues argued that the state of the bones is consistent with general hyena biting, gnawing, and bone-crunching. They suggested that ''Pachycrocuta''—the largest known hyena to have ever lived—was more than capable of splitting robust bones, contrary to Weidenreich.[ They identified bite marks on 67% of the Peking Man fossils (28 specimens), and attributed this and all other perimortem (around the time of death) damage to hyenas.][ Boaz and colleagues conceded that stone tools must indicate human activity in (or at least near) the cave, but, with few exceptions, tools were randomly scattered across the layers (as mentioned by several previous scientists). American geologist Paul Goldberg and colleagues ascribed this to ]bioturbation
Bioturbation is defined as the reworking of soils and sediments by animals or plants. It includes burrowing, ingestion, and defecation of sediment grains. Bioturbating activities have a profound effect on the environment and are thought to be a ...
. This means that the distribution of the tools gives no indication of the duration of human habitation. In 2016, Shuangquan Zhang and colleagues were unable to detect significant evidence of animal, human, or water damage to the few deer bones collected from Layer 3, and concluded they fell into the cave from above. They noted taphonomic debates were still ongoing .
Society
During the Mao era, the dissemination of communist ideology among the general populace of China was imperative. The concept of "labour created humanity"—described by the prominent communist philosopher Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels ( ;["Engels"](_blank)
''Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary''.[The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man
"The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man" (German: "Anteil der Arbeit an der Menschwerdung des Affen") is an unfinished essay written by Friedrich Engels in the spring of 1876 and first published in 1896. The essay forms the nin ...]
"—became central to Chinese anthropology, and was included in almost any discussion regarding Peking Man and human evolution, including educational media for laypersons. To the West, emphasis was usually placed on intelligence rather than labour, especially after the English primatologist Jane Goodall discovered that chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (; ''Pan troglodytes''), also simply known as the chimp, is a species of Hominidae, great ape native to the forests and savannahs of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed one. When its close rel ...
s could make tools in 1960 (i.e., the labour of tool manufacturing is not unique to humans).
As for the society of these ancient humans, including Peking Man, Engel's 1884 book '' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State'' and his concept of primitive communism became popular in academic discussions. Engels had largely based his ideas on the American ethnologist Lewis H. Morgan's 1877 book '' Ancient Society'', which detailed Morgan's studies on "primitive" hunter-gatherer societies, namely the Iroquois
The Iroquois ( ), also known as the Five Nations, and later as the Six Nations from 1722 onwards; alternatively referred to by the Endonym and exonym, endonym Haudenosaunee ( ; ) are an Iroquoian languages, Iroquoian-speaking Confederation#Ind ...
. In the Mao era, Peking Man was consequently often painted as leading a dangerous life in the struggle against nature, organised into simple, peaceful tribes which foraged, hunted, and made stone tools in cooperative groups. As for gender roles, Peking Man society was most often described as "men hunt and women gather."
Consistent with other prehistoric human populations, Peking Man had a rather short average lifespan. Out of a sample of 38 individuals, 15 died under the age of 14 years (39.5%), 3 died around 30 years (7%), 3 died from 40 to 50 years (7%), and 1 at 50 to 60 years (2.6%). The ages of the remaining 16 individuals (43%) could not be determined.
Stone tools
Despite Zhoukoudian being one of the most productive sites for East Asian stone tools, from the 1950s to the 1980s the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) prioritised human and animal fossils. In the rest of the world, especially Europe, tools and manufacturing techniques have been categorised down to regional levels. Consequently, China's Lower Palaeolithic record has generally been viewed as stagnant. Markers of broader periods in the West are conspicuously rare in the East, most notably hand axe
A hand axe (or handaxe or Acheulean hand axe) is a Prehistory, prehistoric stone tool with two faces that is the longest-used tool in human history. It is made from stone, usually flint or chert that has been "reduced" and shaped from a larger ...
s characteristic of the Acheulean culture (typically associated with western ''H. erectus'' and '' H. heidelbergensis'').[ The apparent technological divide inspired the American archaeologist Hallam L. Movius to draw the " Movius Line" in 1948, dividing the East (mainly considering Zhoukoudian tools) into a " chopping-tool culture" and the West into a "hand axe culture".]
Locality 1 at Zhoukoudian has produced more than 100,000 lithic pieces. The majority of these pieces appears to be debitage
In archaeology, debitage is all the material produced during the process of lithic reduction – the production of stone tools and weapons by knapping stone. This Assemblage (archaeology), assemblage may include the different kinds of lithic fla ...
(wastage).[
The tool assemblage is otherwise characterised by mainly large, dull choppers and simple, sharp flakes.][ Similarly, modified animal fossils at Zhoukoudian usually exhibit battering or cutting. Peking Man also rarely manufactured scrapers and (towards the later end of occupation) retouched tools such as points and potentially burins, as suggested by Breuil, but Pei and Movius believed the alleged burins were too crude to have been produced intentionally.][ Brueil also postulated that Peking Man predominantly relied on bone tools made of prey animals' ]antler
Antlers are extensions of an animal's skull found in members of the Cervidae (deer) Family (biology), family. Antlers are a single structure composed of bone, cartilage, fibrous tissue, skin, nerves, and blood vessels. They are generally fo ...
s, jaws, and isolated teeth, but this idea did not receive wide support. Many of his supposed bone flakes could easily be ascribed to hyena activity.
In 1979, to highlight technological evolution, Pei and Zhang partitioned the Zhoukoudian industry into three stages:[
*the early stage typified by the simple hammer and anvil technique (slamming the core against a rock) which produced large flakes namely from soft materials such as ]sandstone
Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...
, weighing up to and measuring from Layer 11;
*the middle stage typified by the bipolar technique (smashing the core into several flakes with a hammerstone, out of which at least a few should be the correct size and shape) which made smaller flakes up to in weight and in length;
*the late stage above Layer 5 typified by even smaller flakes made with harder and higher quality quartz and flint among other cobble.[ Quartz had to be collected some distance from the cave, at local ]granite
Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...
outcrops by the hills and riverbed.
These techniques produced unstandardised tools,[ and Binford was skeptical of any evidence of cultural evolution at all.][
In the early 1960s, between the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, there was a debate over whether Peking Man was the first human species to manufacture tools. The argument centred around whether Zhoukoudian tools were the most primitive and therefore the earliest tools (i.e., Peking Man is the most ancient human) championed by Pei, or if there were even more primitive and as of yet undiscovered tools (i.e., Peking Man is not the most ancient human) championed by Jia. In Western circles, Leakey had already reported an apparent pebble industry in Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania, in 1931, the first hard (albeit, controversial) evidence of a culture more primitive than the Acheulean. ]Radiometric dating
Radiometric dating, radioactive dating or radioisotope dating is a technique which is used to Chronological dating, date materials such as Rock (geology), rocks or carbon, in which trace radioactive impurity, impurities were selectively incorporat ...
in the 1960s established the Oldowan as the oldest known culture, at 1.8 million years old.
Productive contemporaneous Chinese stone tool sites include Xiaochangliang (similar to Zhoukoudian), Mount Jigong, Bose Basin (which produced large tools often in excess of 10 cm, or 4 in), Jinniushan, Dingcun, and Panxian Dadong.
Fire
In 1929, Pei oversaw the excavation of Quartz Horizon 2 (Layer 7, Locus G) of Zhoukoudian, and reported burned bones and stones, ash, and redbud charcoal, which was interpreted as evidence of early fire usage by Peking Man. The evidence was widely accepted. Further excavation in 1935 of Layers 4–5 revealed more burned stones, ash, and hackberry seeds.[ Ash was deposited in horizontal and vertical patches, reminiscent of ]hearth
A hearth () is the place in a home where a fire is or was traditionally kept for home heating and for cooking, usually constituted by a horizontal hearthstone and often enclosed to varying degrees by any combination of reredos (a low, partial ...
s.[
In 1985, Binford and Ho doubted Peking Man actually inhabited Zhoukoudian, and asserted the material was burned by naturally occurring fires fuelled by guano. In 1986, Binford interpreted burned horse teeth as evidence of horse-head roasting.] In 1998, Weiner, Goldberg, and colleagues found no evidence of hearths or siliceous aggregates (silicon particles, which form during combustion
Combustion, or burning, is a high-temperature exothermic redox chemical reaction between a fuel (the reductant) and an oxidant, usually atmospheric oxygen, that produces oxidized, often gaseous products, in a mixture termed as smoke. Combustion ...
) in Layers 1 or 10; they therefore concluded the burned material was simply washed into the cave rather than being burned in the cave. The IVPP immediately responded, and, in 1999, Wu Xinzhi argued that Weiner's data was too limited to reach such conclusions.[ In 2001, Goldberg, Weiner, and colleagues concluded the ash layers are reworked loessic ]silt
Silt is granular material of a size between sand and clay and composed mostly of broken grains of quartz. Silt may occur as a soil (often mixed with sand or clay) or as sediment mixed in suspension (chemistry), suspension with water. Silt usually ...
s, and that blackened carbon
Carbon () is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalence, tetravalent—meaning that its atoms are able to form up to four covalent bonds due to its valence shell exhibiting 4 ...
-rich sediments that have been traditionally interpreted as charcoal are instead deposits of organic matter
Organic matter, organic material or natural organic matter is the large source of carbon-based compounds found within natural and engineered, terrestrial, and aquatic environments. It is matter composed of organic compounds that have come fro ...
left to decompose in standing water
Water stagnation occurs when water stops Environmental flow, flowing for a long period of time. Stagnant water can be a significant environmental hazard.
Dangers
Malaria and dengue are among the main dangers of still water, which can become ...
. That is, there is no evidence of ash or fire at all.
In 2004, Shen and colleagues reported evidence of a massive fire at Layer 10—ostensibly as old as 770,000 years ago, during a glacial period—and asserted Peking Man needed to control fire so far back in time in order to survive such cold conditions. In 2014, the Chinese anthropologist Zhong Maohua and colleagues reported elements associated with siliceous aggregates in Layers 4 and 6, and they also doubted the validity of Weiner's analysis of Layer 10. Similarly, in 2017, Gao and colleagues reported "clear-cut evidence of fire usage" in Layer 4 with some evidence of man-made hearths which, based on magnetic susceptibility and colour, may have been heated to over . In 2022, Huang and colleagues also determined that at least 15 bones from Layer 4 (based on colour) were heated to above inside the cave, consistent with a campfire (or a prolonged wildfire, which they considered less likely inside a cave).
Elsewhere, evidence of fire usage is scarce in the archaeological record until 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, which is generally interpreted as fire not being an integral part of life until this time, either because they could not create or well-maintain it.
See also
* '' Gigantopithecus''
* ''Homo longi
''Homo longi'' is an extinct species of archaic human identified from a nearly complete skull, nicknamed 'Dragon Man', from Harbin on the Northeast China Plain, dating to at minimum 146,000 years ago during the Middle Pleistocene. The skull was d ...
''
* Peopling of China
* Prehistory of China
* Solo Man
Notes
References
Sources
*
*
*
*
*
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*
External links
UNESCO Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian
*
Human Timeline (Interactive)
– Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
The National Museum of Natural History (NMNH) is a natural history museum administered by the Smithsonian Institution, located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., United States. It has free admission and is open 364 days a year. With 4.4 ...
(August 2016).
{{Taxonbar, from=Q45931
Archaeology of China
Early species of Homo
Pleistocene
Pleistocene mammals of Asia
Prehistoric China
Mammals of China
Homo erectus fossils
History of Beijing
Fossil taxa described in 1927
1927 archaeological discoveries
Taxa named by Davidson Black