Peking man

the skeletal remains of Homo erectus, formerly classified as Sinanthropus pekinensis, found at Zhoukoudian, near Peking, China, in the late 1930s and early 1940s and subsequently lost during World War II.

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▪ anthropology

 extinct hominin of the species Homo erectus, known from fossils found at Zhoukoudian near Beijing. Peking man was identified as a member of the human lineage by Davidson Black (Black, Davidson) in 1927 on the basis of a single tooth. Later excavations yielded several skullcaps and mandibles, facial and limb bones, and the teeth of about 40 individuals. The Zhoukoudian fossils date from about 550,000 to 230,000 years ago. Before being assigned to H. erectus, they were variously classified as Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus.

      Peking man is characterized by a cranial capacity averaging about 1,000 cubic cm, though some individual skull capacities approached 1,300 cubic cm—nearly the size of modern man's. Peking man had a skull that was flat in profile, with a small forehead, a keel along the top of the head for attachment of powerful jaw muscles, very thick skull bones, heavy browridges, an occipital torus, a large palate, and a large, chinless jaw. The teeth are essentially modern, though the canines and molars are quite large, and the enamel of the molars is often wrinkled. The limb bones are indistinguishable from those of modern humans.

      Peking man postdates Java man and is considered more advanced in having a larger cranial capacity, a forehead, and nonoverlapping canines.

      The original fossils were under study at the Peking Union Medical College in 1941 when, with Japanese invasion imminent, an attempt was made to smuggle them out of China and to the United States. The bones disappeared and have never been recovered, leaving only plaster casts for study. Renewed excavation in the caves, beginning in 1958, brought new specimens to light. In addition to fossils, core tools and primitive flaked tools were also found.

Additional Reading

Harry L. Shapiro, Peking Man (1976), describes the original finding of the fossils, discusses their significance, and reconstructs the circumstances under which they vanished. Later sources include Lanpo Jia and Weiwen Huang, The Story of Peking Man: From Archaeology to Mystery, trans. from the Chinese by Zhiqi Yin (1990); and Penny Van Oosterzee, The Story of Peking Man (2002; originally published as Dragon Bones, 1999).

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