Human fossils from the Early Paleolithic Age in North China. Homo erectus. It was discovered in the cave accumulation of Longgu Mountain in Zhoukoudian, Beijing. A large number of stone products, bone tools and fire relics were also unearthed. The geological age of the Peking Man is the Middle Pleistocene Minder-Ris interglacial period. According to the uranium series method, fission track method and paleomagnetic dating, the age is about 700,000 to 200,000 years ago.
Discovery and Significance
In 1918, Andersen, a mining consultant to the Chinese Beiyang Government and a Swedish geologist and archaeologist, discovered a fissure accumulation containing animal fossils in Zhoukoudian. In 1921, Anderson, Austrian paleontologist Dansky and others, guided by the local people, found a larger and richer fossil-bearing site on the northern slope of Longgu Mountain, which later became world-famous as Peking Man. Site - "Zhoukoudian No. 1 location". In 1921 and 1923, two human teeth were unearthed and assigned to the genus Homo. As a result of this discovery, large-scale systematic excavations began in Zhoukoudian in 1927, led by Swedish vertebrate paleontologist B. Bulin and Chinese geologist Li Jie. That year, another human left lower permanent molar was discovered. Bu Dasheng, director of the Department of Anatomy at Peking Union Medical College and a Canadian anatomist, studied three teeth that were discovered and gave this ancient human that had never been seen before a Latinized scientific name - Sinanthropus. pekinensis (once translated as "Beijing Chinese ape-man", the original meaning should be "Beijing Chinese"). American paleontologist Gripp (1870-1946) gave it a common name: "Peking man". Now his "genus" and "species" have been merged with Javanese, and another "subspecies" has been established, renamed "Homo erectus pekinensis" (Homo erectus pekinensis).
In 1929, under the sole leadership of Chinese archaeologist Pei Wenzhong (graduated from the Department of Geology of Peking University), a complete skull of Peking Man was discovered on the afternoon of December 2. The announcement of this news shocked the world's academic community. Prior to this, although the remains of Neanderthals in Germany, Homo erectus in Java (see Javanese), and Homo heidelbergensis in Germany had been discovered, these discoveries were not recognized by the academic community due to the constraints of conservative ideas. ; Even among scholars who hold the theory of evolution, there are different opinions on the origin of human beings and the status of these discoveries in the process of human evolution. Since the discovery of the skull of Peking Man, especially the subsequent discovery of stone tools and fire relics, the existence of Homo erectus has been confirmed, which basically clarified the sequence of human evolution and provided strong support for the great theory of "from ape to man" Evidence
In 1937, due to the Japanese imperialists launching a full-scale war of aggression against China, the excavation work in Zhoukoudian was interrupted. At that time, there were only 5 Peking Man skulls discovered, in addition to skull fragments, facial bones, mandibles, femurs, humerus, clavicle, lunate, etc., as well as 147 teeth. These precious specimens were all lost in the hands of a few Americans before and after the outbreak of the Pacific War in December 1941. After the founding of the People's Republic of China, excavations in Zhoukoudian were resumed. After many excavations, five Peking Man teeth and a mandible were discovered. In 1966, a broken skull was also found in the pile near the top. In addition, an upper arm bone and a tibia were identified from bone fragments discovered before 1937. If all previous discoveries are included, a total of more than 40 individual Peking Man fossils have been obtained. At the same time, no less than 100,000 stone artifacts were discovered, as well as abundant bone tools, horn tools and fire relics. The materials from the Peking Man site are the richest and most systematic among the materials from human sites of the same stage discovered around the world, providing valuable information for the study of early Paleolithic humans and their culture.
Stratigraphic accumulation and age The sediments at the Peking Man site are more than 40 meters thick. The upper 34 meters are fossil-bearing accumulations, which can be divided into 13 layers from top to bottom according to lithological changes. They are mainly composed of collapsed limestone fragments in the cave and clay, silt sand and other residues brought into the cave by running water. Among the piles are ashes left by fires used by Beijingers. There are four larger ash layers, and the thickest part of the fourth layer is more than 6 meters. Animal fossils were discovered from the 13th layer and above. Several stone tools were also unearthed from this layer, indicating that there were early human activities.
According to the nature of the animal fossils, the age of layers 11 to 13 is equivalent to that of Zhoukoudian Site 13, about 1.5 kilometers south of the site. The latter is also a cave accumulation, and stone artifacts, ashes, burned bones and mammal fossils were found. It is the earliest remains in the Zhoukoudian area. The eras of the 1st to 3rd levels of the Peking Man Site are roughly equivalent to those of the 15th, 4th and 3rd levels of Zhoukoudian. Among them, the materials unearthed at Zhoukoudian Site 15 are the richest, including a large number of animal fossils and stone products, as well as ashes and burnt bones. There are not many relics at the other two sites, but a human tooth was found at the fourth site, making it another site in the Zhoukoudian area where human fossils have been unearthed in addition to the Peking Man site and the Shandong Cave site. Some researchers believe that the age of these three sites may have reached the early stage of the Late Pleistocene based on the fact that there are later fossils such as red deer.
There is a development in the study of the age of the Peking Man site. process. At first, Andersen and Schdansky thought it was the Pliocene.
By the end of the 1920s, French paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) and Chinese vertebrate paleontologist Yang Zhongjian, etc., based on the nature of the fauna, determined that this site was later than the Nihewan Period and later than the Loess Period. Early mid-Pleistocene. After the discovery of the Lantian Man site in the 1960s, some people proposed dividing the Middle Pleistocene in North China into two phases: the early and the late. The early stage is represented by the Lantian Man site containing the Gongwangling fauna, and the late stage is represented by the Peking Man site containing the Zhoukoudian fauna. Represented (see Chinese Paleolithic Archeology). After 1976, the uranium series method, fission track method, paleomagnetic method and other methods were used to determine the age of the Peking Man site. It was found that the 13th layer and above were about 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, and the 14th layer The following are older than 700,000 years ago.
Physical Characteristics: The widest part of the Pekingese skull is slightly above the left and right ear holes, and gradually narrows upward, with a parabolic cross-section. This is different from the widest part of the skull of modern humans, which is moved up to the middle of the skull, and is also lower compared to Neanderthals. The skull of Peking Man is low and flat, and the forehead is tilted backward. Although it is taller than that of apes, it is lower than that of modern humans and slightly lower than that of Neanderthals. The average brain size of Pekingese is 1043 cubic centimeters, which is between that of apes and modern humans. Their skulls were about twice as thick as those of modern humans. The eyebrow ridge is thick, protruding forward, and connected to each other on the left and right sides. There is an obvious sagittal crest in the middle of the skull, and a well-developed occipital crest at the back of the skull. Pekingese have shorter faces, protruding muzzles and no chin. They have flat and wide nasal bones and cheekbones, with the cheekbones facing forward, indicating that they have wide noses and low, flat faces. There is an obvious mandibular round pillow on the inner surface of the mandible near the front. Their teeth were smaller than those of apes, both in crown and root. The texture of the crown was also simple, but much thicker and more complex than that of modern humans. In addition, the lingual surfaces of the canine teeth and the upper medial incisors have finger-like processes extending from the basal tubercle to the incisal edge; the lingual surfaces of the upper medial and lateral incisors are obviously spade-shaped. The preserved primitive nature of the head of Peking Man is similar to that of Java Man, so they both belong to the development stage of Homo erectus. Pekingese have shovel-shaped incisors, wide noses and low, flat faces, and a mandibular round pillow on the front of the inner surface of the mandible, which also shows that they have obvious characteristics of modern Mongolian race
Beijing Human Culture The cultural relics of Beijingers include stone artifacts, bone and horn tools, and fire relics. The stone tools are mainly flake stone tools, with fewer stone core stone tools, and most of them are small. The raw materials include vein quartz, sandstone, quartzite, flint and other gravels from the river beach outside the cave, as well as crystals found on the granite hillside two kilometers away. Pekingese use gravel as a hammer, and depending on the stone material, they use the direct impact method, the anvil method and the smashing method to make stone flakes. Among them, the bipolar stone cores and bipolar stone flakes produced by the smashing method account for a large proportion of all stone products and constitute one of the important features of Beijing's human culture. In the second step of processing, stone hammers are often used to directly strike, mainly from one side, and most of them are processed from the cracking side to the back.
Beijing people’s stone tools include chopping tools, scrapers, carving tools, stone hammers and stone anvils, etc. They selected oblate sandstone or quartz gravel and punched edges from one or both sides to make chopping tools. These stone tools are larger in size. "Scrapers" are made of stone flakes of different sizes, with disc-shaped, straight blades, convex blades, concave blades, multi-edged blades and other shapes. They are the most numerous type of stone tools. There are not many "pointed ware" and "engraving ware" in number, but they are relatively exquisitely made and small in size. Some are only as big as a finger. The production procedures and methods are relatively fixed, reflecting a certain level of technology. (See the colored picture of the pointed tools of the "Peking Man".) Among the known sites of the same period in the world, similar stone tools with comparable level of sophistication have never been heard of. Stone hammers and stone anvils were their tools for making stone tools. It can be seen from the knock marks left on the stone hammer that Beijingers are good at using their right hand.
In addition, traces of use are often found on some stone flakes that have not been processed in the second step