Peking Man was a Homo erectus who lived in Zhoukoudian, ancient Beijing, and used natural fire to make tools (stone tools), and for the first time humans achieved the ability to control a natural force.
In 1929, in the cave on the keel mountain in Zhoukoudian, Beijing, the ruins were stacked more than 40 meters thick. This site was first discovered in 1929 by Chinese archaeologists a complete fossil of an ancient human skull, which is the world-famous Peking Man.
They were 690,000 years old at the earliest, and lasted for 400,000 years, and still retained some of the characteristics of apes, but they had a clear division of hands and feet, could make and use tools, and could use natural fire. The forests are dense, overgrown with wild grasses, and infested with wild beasts. The Pekingese beat stones into rough stone tools and cut branches into wooden sticks, waging a tough struggle against nature with the most primitive tools.
In such a hostile environment, it is impossible to live on the strength of a single person. Therefore, they often have dozens of people together, work together, share the fruits of labor together, and live in groups. This led to the formation of early primitive societies.
Introduction
During the day, the Pekingese make tools, pick fruits, hunt wild beasts, and return to the caves of Dragon Bone Mountain at night, resting while roasting the fire, and conversing with simple language and gestures. Peking Man used its lower limbs to support its body, walked upright, and its upper limbs were similar to those of modern humans, preying on wild animals.
Peking Man may be one of the ancestors of modern Chinese.
The best in the world
The Peking Man site is the site with the richest archaeological bones, fossils and fire relics unearthed in the world. Peking Man is the most abundant and complete Homo erectus in the world. Five relatively complete Peking Man skull fossils and some fossils from other parts have been discovered, as well as a large number of stone tools and stone chips, totaling more than 100,000 pieces. About 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, it was found in Zhoukoudian, Beijing, and retained some characteristics of apes, using stone tools, using natural fire, and living in groups. Some scholars believe that bone horns were already made at that time. In addition to hunting, edible wild fruits, young leaves, roots, and small animals such as insects, birds, frogs, and snakes are also daily food**. The caves where Pekingese lived were thick layers of ashes, up to 6 meters thick at the thickest point, and the ash heaps contained burnt animal bones, tree seeds, stones, and charcoal blocks. It shows that Pekingese people already know how to use fire and preserve fire. The study found that Beijingers usually form groups of dozens of people. Life expectancy is short, and most people die before the age of 14.
History of discovery
The site was discovered in August 1921 by the Swedish geologist Andersen and the American and Austrian paleontologist Dansky, and excavations began in 1927. On December 2, 1929, Chinese archaeologist Pei Wenzhong excavated the first complete fossilized skull in the cave of Zhoukoudian Dragon Bone Mountain, and he excitedly concluded that it was the remains of ancient humans. Since then, archaeologists have found five relatively complete Peking Man skull fossils and some other bone fossils in Zhoukoudian, which belong to more than 40 individuals of different ages and genders. There are also a large number of stone tools and stone chips and other items, totaling more than 100,000 pieces. The cultural deposits contain piles of ashes, burnt bones and charred seeds, and more than 100 animal fossils. The Zhoukoudian site, known as the "Home of Peking People", is the most abundant ancient human site found in China, and it is also the site with the richest ancient human bones and relics unearthed in the world.
These archaeological inventions have provided valuable information for the study of the physical form, labor and living conditions of the people of Beijing.
Peking Man skull fossil - frontal bone.
In 1941, when Sino-Japanese relations became increasingly tense, the United States planned to transport the Peking Man skull and other fossil materials to the American Museum of Natural History for preservation due to concerns about the safety of Peking Man fossils. When the Pacific War broke out in December of that year, the Japanese army quickly occupied the American institutions in Beijing, Tianjin, Qinhuangdao, and other places, including Peking Union Medical College. The only true specimen in existence is a model of a Peking Man skull discovered from the top layer in 1966. Later, stone products and bone and horn products were discovered.
The Chinese personnel who participated in the excavation included the later academician Mr. Jia Lanpo, and with his death, a group of the first excavated ones were not sorted out and kept.
Fan Wenlan's "General History of China" Part I: "In the cave of Zhoukoudian in southwest Beijing, in 1929, I found that I was living in an appointment.
400,000-year-old fossilized ape-man skulls, teeth, mandibles, and torso bones. This ape-man was named the 'Peking Species of Chinese Ape-Man' (or 'Peking Man'). They already knew how to take gravel or quartz, strike it into angular flakes, and use them as ** or production tools. They lived in caves in limestone, lit fires with firewood, and barbecued food.
Physical characteristics
Pekingese have high cheekbones. The average brain volume is 1075 ml, and the maximum brain volume is 1225 ml, which is close to the average brain volume of modern people (1400 ml). The average height of males is 162 cm, the average height of females is 152 cm, its face is slightly shorter than that of modern humans, and it is protruding forward, with a low and flat forehead, a wide and flat nose, two thick interconnected brow bones on the upper edge of the orbit, a protruding mouth, thick teeth, and the upper and lower jawbones protruding forward, without a chin.
In 1987, the Zhoukoudian Peking Man site was included in the list of "World Cultural Heritage" by UNESCO.
The life of the people of Beijing
The people of Beijing use natural fire, and the so-called natural fire is not artificially taken fire, but thunder that strikes dry wood and ignites the fire, or volcanic eruptions and forest fires. They take turns watching the fire at night, and they use ash to preserve the fire.
At that time, the area where the people of Beijing lived had large forests and waters, and the climate was warm and humid. There are often animals here, such as sika deer, wild horses, etc., and there are also abundant aquatic plants. Pekingese people made all kinds of tools from stones, animal bones and antlers. Their technology in making stone tools is relatively mature, and they use different methods to make different types of tools. Such as pointers, scrapers, stone hammers and anvils. The era in which this kind of stone tools were used was called the Paleolithic Age, and the people of Beijing used these tools to hunt animals and collect plant fruits. They live together in groups and work together to obtain food.
At that time they roasted and ate on the fire, and slept by the fire at night, so that they could keep warm and drive away wild beasts, which were afraid of fire.
At that time, the area around Zhoukoudian was densely forested, overgrown with wild grasses, and infested with fierce beasts. The people of Beijing used the method of hammering and smashing to beat the stones into rough stone tools, and unearthed chopping tools, scrapers, carving tools, etc., cutting tree branches into wooden sticks, and waging an arduous struggle against nature with extremely primitive tools. It is impossible to live by the strength of a single person, so they often have dozens of people together, work together, share the fruits of labor, and live in groups, forming an early primitive society.
Relations with modern Chinese
Many people accept that hominins originated in Africa because fossils of humans who walked upright were found there more than 4 million years ago and between 1.5 million and 3 million years ago. Over the past 50 years, Chinese archaeologists have discovered more than 60 ancient human fossil sites and more than 1,000 Paleolithic cultural sites in Yuanmou in Yunnan, Lantian in Shaanxi, and Hexian in Anhui. Chinese archaeologists believe that from Homo erectus represented by Peking Man to modern Chinese, there was no interruption in between, and it was the result of a small amount of hybridization from the continuous advancement of the river network. Thus, modern humans in China originated from the native early Homo sapiens. As one of the direct ancestors of modern Chinese, the Pekingese are written into Chinese history textbooks.
Keel Mountain. Today's emerging molecular anthropology poses a challenge to this. According to the "single origin theory" that emerged in the 1980s, modern humans appeared in eastern Africa about 20-100,000 years ago and entered East Asia at least 60,000 years ago. Therefore, the Peking ape and today's Chinese are also not related. This theory is mainly based on the analysis of mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosomes in modern populations. Jin Li, a scientist at the Center for Human Genetics at the University of Texas in the United States, also wrote an article after cooperating with some Chinese scientific research institutes to point out that today's genetic evidence does not support the claim that modern Chinese have an independent origin. They believe that in East Asia between 100,000 and 40,000 years ago, there was in fact a fossil "break" period, that is, human sites in this period are very rare. Between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, people from Africa arrived in southern China and gradually replaced the descendants of the ancient people of Asia, such as the Peking Man. Although there is considerable controversy about the path of modern humans into East Asia, most geneticists have accepted this view.
However, in the field of archaeology, there is still no shortage of opponents. The debate centers on the reliability of small amounts of genetic material, the continuity of fossil remains in China, and the possibility of mixing between two heterologous humans. Wu Xinzhi, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that fossil evidence is more important than genetic evidence because it is more direct. French paleontologist Yves Coppon also believes that fossils speak more tellingly than genetic evidence at this stage. He believes that there is indeed a continuous evolutionary relationship between modern humans in Asia and ancient humans in Asia, and that the fossils of Asian humans from various periods seen in China have a series of common characteristics. "It's hard to believe that all of us modern humans originated in Africa" and lived 680,000-780,000 years ago.
Through the study of Peking Man, we can find the law of evolution and development from early ape man to modern human, which provides reliable evidence for the study of human origin.
Latest discoveries
The Zhoukoudian "Peking Man" site has been questioned by some Western scholars for 30 years, and due to insufficient evidence of fire, the Zhoukoudian Ape Man Cave has been questioned as just a natural "trap" rather than a place where ancient humans lived. Yesterday, the Zhoukoudian site held a press conference to unveil a large number of newly discovered evidence of "Peking Man" controlling fire use, which effectively countered the doubts of Western scholars. A large number of relics show that the "Peking Man" learned to use fire 40 to 500,000 years ago.
Latest discoveries Nearly 10,000 specimens have been excavated.
The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site Management Office jointly released the rescue cleaning and excavation results of the first site (ape cave) of the Zhoukoudian site from 2011 to 2014 and the excavation plan for 2015.
According to Zhang Shuangquan, an associate researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the leader of the rescue cleaning and excavation team of the Ape Man Cave, through the excavation of the upper and lower parts of the fourth layer of the Ape Man Cave, a total of 10,000 identifiable specimens have been unearthed. Among them, there are nearly 4,000 pieces of stone products, the raw materials are basically vein quartz, and there are crystal, flint, etc., and the types of stone products include stone chips, scrapers, choppers, fragments, chips, etc.
There are more than 3,000 large and medium-sized animal bone specimens that can be identified, including giant macaques, swollen bighorn deer, sika deer, wild boars, rhinoceros, three-door horses, hyenas, etc.;In addition, more than 2,000 fossils of small animals such as rodents and birds have been unearthed.
The archaeological excavations mainly focused on the 5th and 6th layers of the Ape Man Cave, and planned to clear the accumulation with a thickness of 3 to 4 meters. This would increase the likelihood of finding a fossil of "Peking Man".
Push back against the doubts of Western scholars
An important discovery of this excavation is that during the clean-up process, the dense appearance of ancient human fire-using relics and relics such as fire ponds, in-situ sintered soil, burnt stones, and burnt bones, which provide important scientific materials for the study of the fire-using behavior of "Peking Man".
Gao Xing, a famous Chinese paleolithic archaeologist and paleoanthropologist, introduced that the fourth layer of the ape-man cave is the "ash layer" or "upper cultural layer" in the previous records, during which there are not only the remains of the evidence of the "Peking Man" using fire, but also a large number of stone products and animal fossils unearthed.
Gao Xing said that since 1985, some Western scholars have questioned the ability of "Peking Man" to use fire and preserve it, suggesting that the burnt bones, burnt stones, and ashes that are evidence of ancient human use of fire may have been washed into by water from outside the caveBlackened materials and ashes may have been caused by natural fire, or by spontaneous combustion or oxidation of humus in caves, or from the droppings of birds, bats, etc. The cave may have been a natural "trap" rather than a place where ancient humans lived.
Find evidence of control firepower
The results of this excavation suggest that the sediments in the suspected fire area of the site are likely to have undergone more than 700 degrees of heating, which is generally not possible with natural fires. Gao Xing said that these magnetic and chromatic deposits may be affected by human controlled fire, but whether they were accumulated in situ fire areas or have undergone re-transportation still needs further research.
Gao Xing introduced that in order to obtain conclusive evidence of the use of fire by the "Peking Man", a number of factors such as magnetism, luminescence characteristics, micromorphology, elemental carbon, phytolith, pollen, infrared spectroscopy analysis, and distribution characteristics of cultural relics were organized, and the evidence of whether the "Peking Man" used fire was re-examined, and whether there was evidence of the presence of silicete in the ashes.
The study found that the ashes of the 4th and 6th layers of the ape-man cave contained siliceous bodies, which is a kind of evidence that "Peking Man" used fire, indicating that "Peking Man" was in the age of the 4th and 6th layers (400,000-500,000 years ago) and could have used fire in a controlled manner.
"Zero distance experience of archaeological excavation" special activity.
According to Dong Cuiping, director of the Peking Man Site Management Office in Zhoukoudian, in order to shorten the distance between cultural heritage and the public, combined with the ongoing rescue cleaning and excavation work of the Ape Man Cave, the site management office launched a special activity of "zero distance experience archaeological excavation" in the summer.
Visitors can visit the archaeological excavation site of the Ape Man Cave up close, exchange geology, archaeology, paleoanthropology and other aspects of knowledge with archaeological experts face-to-face, and further understand the production and life of ancient humans.
At the same time, under the guidance of science popularization workers, the audience can also carry out simulated excavations in the simulated excavation area of Zhoukoudian ruins, and clean up and identify the excavated fossils, so as to further understand the knowledge of archaeological excavation and experience the hardships of archaeology.
A small archive of Zhoukoudian ruins
The "heart" of the Zhoukoudian site
The first site (Ape Man Cave) is the "heart" of the Zhoukoudian site, the most scientifically valuable landmark accumulation of the site, and the representative remains of the Quaternary geological section, which preserves the most complete stratigraphic sequence and rich scientific information of the site.
Since its excavation in the 20s of the last century, the ape-man cave has been damaged by natural forces such as sun, rain and wind erosion for a long time. In order to do a good job in the protection and research of the ape cave, the State Administration of Cultural Heritage approved the excavation of this site in 2009.
Since 2009, rescue excavations have been carried out on the west section of the first site of the Zhoukoudian site (Ape Man Cave).