Peking Man Běijīngrén 北京人

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Peking Man is a hominid of the species Homo (1894–1988) of Uppsala University in Sweden to conduct erectus, discovered in the 1920s in Zhoukou- the excavations. During the first year Zdansky found a dian, not far from Beijing (known then as humanoid tooth, and a second one in 1923, while work- Peking). Remains of more than 40 individu- ing on Zhoukoudian fossils at the laboratory in Uppsala. The discoveries were not made known to Andersson until als have been found dating back c. 670,000– 1926, who then announced the new finds on 22 October of 410,000 years ago, and Chinese researchers that year. The Canadian physician and paleoanthropolo- believe that the species intermittently occu- gist Davidson Black 步达生 (1884–1934) of the Peking pied the area during this time, using stone Union Medical College examined the finds and wrote the tools and, in its later stages, controlled the first paper on the new species. It was based largely on pho- use of fire. tographs and a written report by Zdansky and published in the journal Nature on 20 November 1926. After the an- nouncement American paleontologist Amadeus William Grabau 葛利普 (1870–1946) of Peking University coined he term Peking Man refers to a hominid—a species the popular name “Peking Man,” and Black gave the find of the family Hominidae to which humans and its official name, Sinantrophus pekinensis, though it later their closest fossil ancestors belong—discovered was changed to Homo erectus pekinensis. during excavations that were begun in 1921 in Zhoukou- Joint excavations by China and Western nations were dian 周口店, Hebei Province, approximately 50 kilome- set up at Zhoukoudian. A third tooth was found in 1927 by ters southwest of Beijing. The area, declared a UNESCO Swedish paleontologist Birger Bohlin 步林 (1898–1990), World Heritage Site in 1987, has yielded remains of more and at the end of 1929, the first skullcap was identified than forty individuals dating back to 670,000–410,000 by the Chinese paleontologist Pei Wenzhong 裴文中 years before the present (an alternative dating puts the (1904–1982). Based on the new finds, Black concluded that remains at 580,000–230,000 years ago), and Chinese re- Peking Man was similar to Java Man, or Pithecanthropus searchers believe that Peking Man intermittently occu- erectus, a hominid first found in Indonesia in 1891. Both pied the area during this time. finds were later confirmed to be of the same species, and The excavations at Zhoukoudian were initiated by renamed Homo erectus. Erectus finds have also been made Swedish geologist and archaeologist Johan Gunnar An- in Africa, and most paleontologists believe today that dersson 安特生 (1874–1960), who while working for Homo erectus evolved and spread from Africa to Eurasia. the Geological Survey of China had shown a profound During the Japanese occupation of China and World War interest in surveying fossil deposits in China. He re- II, the remains from the Peking Man discovery—apart cruited Austrian paleontologist Otto Zdansky师丹斯基 from three teeth stored in Uppsala—disappeared in an 1735

The excavation site at Zhoukoudian in 1921 (with Otto Zdansky to the far left), the year he uncovered a single tooth, the first evidence of Peking Man. In the center below is Walter Granger from the American Museum of Natural History in New York, who visited Zhoukoudian to introduce modern excavation techniques. From Children of the Yellow Earth (1934). With permission from The Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, Stockholm.

attempt to smuggle the remains to safety in the United scrapers made of flakes of various sizes that have been States. New finds since have been made in Zhoukoudian found on the site. In 1931 Black reported the presence of and in other parts of China to confirm the existence of what he believed to be burned animal bones and black- the species. ened layers containing quantities of carbon inside the Peking Man had a long, low skull that was remark- cave deposits. Although no real hearths were found, it ably thick, with a large brow ridge above the eye sockets. was believed that Black’s report indicated that Peking Its brain size varied from 915 to 1,225 cubic centimeters, Man was able to control the use of fire. The evidence for compared with an average cranial capacity of about 1,350 this assertion was questioned in the 1980s and 1990s in a cubic centimeters in modern humans. report by American archaeologists and anthropologists It used stone tools, as evidenced by the large num- Lewis Binford and Nancy Stone, and later by a team led ber of chopping tools made of sandstone or quartz, and by Steve Weiner of the Weizmann Institute of Science in

Israel. The first study did, however, acknowledge episodes occur. A long-held claim that Peking Man may have been of roasting horse heads in the later phases of the occupa- the forefather of the people in Asia has been contradicted tion, and the latter noted burned animal bones in associa- by recent DNA research. tion with stone tools nearby. Jan ROMGARD A theory that Peking Man was a cannibal that lived in a cave on the site was put forward first in the late 1920s by Henri Breuil 步日耶 (1877–1961) and in the 1930s by Further Reading Franz Weidenreich 魏登瑞 (1873–1948), who continued Andersson, J .G. (1934). Children of the yellow earth: Stud- Black’s work after his death in 1934. Weidenreich con- ies in prehistoric China. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, cluded that many remains found in the cave bore traces Trubner. of physical wounds and that some of the crania seemed to Boaz, N. T., & Ciochon, R. L. (2004). Dragon Bone Hill: have been broken, presumably to reach the brain within. An ice-age saga of Homo erectus. Oxford, U.K.: Ox- Pei Wenzhong early disagreed with this conclusion and ford University Press. suggested instead that these skeletal wounds could have Jia Lanpo & Huang Weiwen. (1990). The story of Peking Man: From archaeology to mystery. Oxford, U.K.: Ox- resulted from hyenas dragging their victims to the cave ford University Press. and eating them there. Pei’s view won fresh support in Reader, J. (1981). Missing links: The hunt for earliest man. the 1980s and 1990s from research conducted by Binford Boston: Little Brown. and Stone, whose examinations of bite and tool marks on Schmalzer, S. (2008). The people’s Peking Man: Popular animal bones furthermore indicated that Peking Man was science and human identity in twentieth-century China. a scavenger instead of a hunter and that the cave mostly Chicago and London: The University of Chicago was occupied by denning animals. However, a cranium Press. discovered in 1966 has recently been shown to have marks Shapiro, H. L. (1974). Peking Man. New York: Simon & from stone tools, indicating that cannibalism in fact did Schuster.

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