Peking Man Site at Zhoukoudian [Beijing]

Zhoukoudian is a small village situated about 50 km southwest of Beijing. Embraced by a chain of mountains from the northwest and rolling hills from the northeast, the village opens to the vast Huabei plains. One half kilometre north, one finds a narrow pass leading to a basin. Baerhe stream wriggles out of the pass and flows down south. It passes then to the west of Zhoukoudian and finally drains into Liulihe about 10 km south of the village. The Peking Man Site is just on the west side of Zhoukoudian Village.

The exposure of sedimentary strata around Zhoukoudian is quite extraordinary, especially those of the Pliocene and Pleistocene, and therefore attract geologists to visit the area. On the other hand, the area also bears rich Ordovician limestone with which the local habitants make lime. It is by quarrying the limestone that local habitants find, in some fissures, the so-called Dragon Bones, which scientists call fossils.

In February 1918, Johann Gunnar Andersson, a famous Swedish geologist and archaeologist, was told that there were some fossils at what was called Chicken-bone Hill near Zhoukoudian. He was then serving as an adviser on mineral affairs in the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce of the Chinese Government. He showed much interest and, in the following month, made a survey at the hill where a lot of rodent fossil was collected. The rodent fossil was taken as chicken bones by local people and the Chicken-bone Hill was so named. The latter is nominated later as Locality 6 of the Peking Man Site. This discovery of the locality is not so important, but the survey led to a series of investigations in the region.

In 1921, when Andersson and Otto Zdansky, an Austrian palaeontologist, made another survey at Zhoukoudian, local people informed them that there were more fossils on Dragon Bone Hill. They started an excavation and found some animal fossils and quartz fragments. The excavation brought along the discovery of two human-like teeth. One of them was an upper molar. It was found during the excavation. Another one was an unerupted lower premolar. It was found while preparing the fossil at the Institute of Palaeontology of Upsala University in Sweden. One year later, they continued the excavation at the locality. At the welcome ceremony for the Swedish Prince's visit to China on the 22nd of October in 1926, Andersson announced the discovery of two teeth of early man from Zhoukoudian. The news astonished the scientific world since at that time there had not been any discovery of any such ancient human fossil in China nor any other country in Asia.

Dr. Davidson Black, a Canadian anthropologist and Dean of the Anatomy Department of Peiping Union Medical College, thoroughly studied the upper molar found in 1921. He nominated the specimen under Hominidae, a new genus, and a new species, "Sinanthropus pekinensis Black and Zdansky". An American geologist, A. William Grabau, gave it a popular name - "Peking Man". According to the development of anthropology, the species is nowadays attributed to Homo erectus pekinensis. Many people, however, still call it Peking Man.

Thanks to the findings of hominid fossil teeth, Dr. Wenhao Weng, the director of the Geological Survey of China, and Dr. Black prepared an agreement in February of 1927 - "Co-operative research between Geological Survey of China and Peiping Union Medical College on the Tertiary and Quaternary deposits of northern China". The research was then supported by Rockefeller Foundation. The systematic excavation of Zhoukoudian Site was undertaken thereafter.

In 1928, Dr C. C. Young, a famous Chinese paleontologist, and Wenzhong Pei, a young Chinese geologist joined the excavation. Two lower jaws of Peking Man were unearthed in this year. To make the excavation more successful, Dr Weng and Dr Black established "Cenozoic Research Laboratory" in 1929.

Within the research framework of the laboratory, Father Teilhard de Chardin, an eminent French paleontologist, and C. C. Young studied the fossiliferous deposits at Zhoukoudian and divided them into 10 layers in 1929. And the most important discovery of all was made on the 2nd of December in 1929. It was in a branching cave where a fissure crosses the main cave that Pei found the first and almost complete skull cap of Peking Man in the red sandy clay which is equivalent to the 10th layer in the main section. The discovery attracted great attention from scientific circles. The two human-like teeth found before were not enough to convince everyone that they belong to Peking Man, but the skullcap gives more anatomical proof and was much more convincing.

In the history of palaeoanthropology, the discovery of Peking Man was not the first one of its kind; however, the discovery established a definite status of this kind in the human evolutionary history. In 1891-92, a Dutch scientist, Dubois (1858-1940), found a hominid fossil of an ancient man at Java, Indonesia. A skullcap, a broken mandible, three teeth, and a large femur were unearthed. In 1894, Dubois named the specimens Pithecanthropus erectus, that is, erected ape-man. Dubois took the specimens to Holland in 1895 and it was immediately known all over the world. Heated debate arose: one party claimed the fossil to be of human, although they are crude and robust, while Dubois and his followers argued that the fossil occupies the stage of transitional form between ape and man. Someone argued that the fossils were of extinct large long-armed ape, or orangutan. Others claimed the fossils are of an idiot or abnormal man.

As another representative of ape man, Peking Man came on stage under such historical background. However, the fate of findings concerning Peking Man appeared as irrefutable proof. Homo erectus is different from the ape in physical characters and cranial capacity. He was able to engage in creative behaviour, develop culture, control fire, and hunt big animals. The discovery of Peking Man enabled one to solve the long-lasting polemics that had continued since the discovery of Java man in the 19th century and proved that Homo erectus evolved from the ape. It has established the erect man stage which occupies the intermediate stage in human evolution. The discovery brought a sudden progress in the theory of human origin and evolution. Peking Man stands as an everlasting monument in the history of paleoanthropological research.

Until today, Peking Man holds as ever a realistic and scientific value. The Peking Man Site is representing the most comprehensively and systematically studied site of Homo erectus. The Peking Man Site also provides the more precise scientific data for the study of the evolution, behaviour, and paleoenvironment of Homo erectus than contemporary African and European sites.

Just after the discovery of the first skullcap of Peking Man, the second skullcap was discovered in the spring of 1930. It was found and restored from a block of sediments from Locus nearby that of the first skullcap and brought back to the Cenozoic Research Laboratory.

In 1932, the scale of the excavation was large and daily employment of workers was more than one hundred. Within a square kilometre sphere, excavation of different Loci was often carried out simultaneously.

Since 1935, excavation was under the charge of Mr. Jia Lan-po, world famous archeologist. In the following excavations, the most fruitful year was in 1936, three complete skullcaps were unearthed.
The excavation was interrupted at first by the Second World War in which the five skullcaps of Peking Man were lost and then again by the Civil War.

69.6 km from Beijing Railway station

69.8 km from Langfang Railway Sta.