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96-598: Sinanthropus pekinensis Black & Zdansky, 1927 Peking Man ( Homo erectus pekinensis ) is a subspecies of H. erectus which is known from the Zhoukoudian Cave in modern northern China during the Chibanian . The first fossil, a tooth, was discovered in 1921, and the Zhoukoudian Cave has since then become the most productive H. erectus site in the world. Peking Man was instrumental in

192-404: A clavicle , 3 humeri (upper arm bones), potentially 2 iliac fragments (the hip), 7 femora, a tibia (shinbone), and a lunate bone (a wrist bone). The material may represent as many as 40 individuals. Peking Man and anatomically similar East Asian contemporaries are sometimes referred to as "classic" H. erectus . In 1937, Weidenreich and his assistant Lucille Swan attempted to reconstruct

288-694: A hominid tooth at Zhoukoudian was made in 1921 by another paleontologist, Otto Zdansky . Granger's work in China also took him to the Three Gorges area of the Yangtze River , but his five expeditions in 1922, 1923, 1925, 1927 and 1928 into the Gobi Desert of Mongolia in association with the legendary Roy Chapman Andrews led to Granger's most famous discoveries, including Velociraptor , Oviraptor and Protoceratops , dinosaur finds that

384-502: A body weight on the whereabouts of 50 kg (110 lb). The endocast (the cast of the inside of the braincase) is ovoid in top-view. The frontal lobe is narrowed like in other H. erectus , the parietal lobes are depressed unlike Javan and African H. erectus or modern humans (though this seems to be somewhat variable among the Peking Man material), the temporal lobes are narrow and slender unlike most other human species,

480-578: A chin. The extramolar sulci bordering the cheek side of the molars are broad. Some mandibles feature a torus on the tongue side, or multiple mental foramina . The dental arches (tooth rows) are U-shaped. The incisors feature an eminence at the base, finger-like ridges on the tongue-side, and for the upper ones marked shovelling (the tooth strongly bends in). Modern human incisors can exhibit shovelling, quite frequently in Chinese populations. The mandibular incisors are narrow. Weidenreich originally restored

576-466: A complete skull, though only considered a skullcap (Skull XI), a left maxillary (upper jawbone) fragment (Skull XII/III), and a right mandibular fragment, which are the presumed-female specimens based on relatively smaller size. Though larger presumed-male specimens are much more numerous, they probably chose female specimens because a presumed-male maxilla would not be discovered until 1943. In 1996, anthropologists Ian Tattersall and Gary Sawyer revised

672-442: A cool, predominantly steppe, partially forested environment, alongside deer, rhinos, elephants, bison, buffalo, bears, wolves, big cats, and other animals. Peking Man intermittently inhabited the Zhoukoudian Cave from potentially as far back as 800,000 years ago to as recent as 230,000 years ago, but the precise chronology is unclear. This spans several cold glacial and warm interglacial periods. The cultural complexity of Peking Man

768-531: A cousin, Anna Deane Granger (1874–1952), in 1904. They had no children. Granger died in 1941 of heart failure in Lusk, Wyoming , while on a field expedition. His ashes were scattered on his mother's grave in Pleasant View Cemetery in his hometown of Middletown Springs, Vermont. Granger's career was one of solid accomplishment in the field of collecting and analyzing fossils. Involved with some of

864-405: A depression on either side, which accentuates the parietal eminence . The temporal lines arcing in pairs across either side of the skull often merge into a single ridge near the midline of the skull. The squamous part of temporal bone (the flat region) is positioned quite low, and the temporal fossa (the depression between the temporal lines and cheek) is relatively narrow. The mastoid part of

960-467: A fine sieve. Through the Mao era , but most especially in 1950 and 1951, Peking Man took on a central role in the restructuring of the Chinese identity under the new government, specifically to link socialist ideologies with human evolution. Peking Man was taught in educational books for all levels, pop science magazines and articles, museums, and lectures given in workspaces, including factories. This campaign

1056-482: A human ancestor, favouring the hoax Piltdown Man from Britain. In 1927, Black classified newly discovered human remains from the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site into a new genus and species as " Sinanthropus pekinensis ". The Peking Man, with a brain volume much larger than living apes , was used to further invalidate African or European origin models. Peking Man's importance in human evolution

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1152-481: A human, and asserted several Chinese apes millions of years old were human ancestors. Jia proposed the earliest human species evolved on the Tibetan Plateau , and the adjacent Guizhou Province was another popularly proposed genesis point. Various late Middle Pleistocene Chinese specimens have been argued, namely by Chinese palaeoanthropologist Wu Xinzhi , to represent hybrid populations between Peking Man and

1248-926: A male height of 156 cm (5 ft 1 in). He speculated an average female height of 144 cm (4 ft 9 in). In 2018, Chinese palaeoanthropologist Song Xing estimated the living weight for Humeri II and III as about 53.6 kg (118 lb), Femur I 54.8 kg (121 lb), Femur IV 54.3 kg (120 lb), and Femur VI 51.6 kg (114 lb). Weidenreich assumed all these represent males. Overall, northerly H. erectus populations tend to be shorter than tropical populations, with colder climate populations including Zhoukoudian and Dmanisi averaging roughly 150 cm (4 ft 11 in), and hotter climate populations including African and Javan H. erectus 160 cm (5 ft 3 in). Because human remains (encompassing males, females, and children), tools, and potential evidence of fire were found in so many layers, it has often been assumed Peking Man lived in

1344-556: A mild glacial period . The earliest H. erectus fossils in all of China, Yuanmou Man, may date to 1.7 million years ago, though stone tools from the Shangchen site in Lantian, central China, extend the occupation of the region to as far back as 2.12 million years ago. Despite what Charles Darwin had hypothesised in his 1871 Descent of Man , many late-19th century evolutionary naturalists postulated that Asia (instead of Africa)

1440-564: A pittance of 40 to 50 yuan annually. The Zhoukoudian also employed some of the biggest names in Western and Chinese geology, palaeontology, palaeoanthropology, and archaeology, and facilitated an important discourse and collaboration between these two civilisations. After Black's sudden death in 1934, Jewish anatomist Franz Weidenreich , who fled Nazi Germany , carried on Black's study of the Zhoukoudian. In 1941, to safeguard them during

1536-605: A separate description is warranted. These distinct groups do not interbreed as they are isolated from another, but they can interbreed and have fertile offspring, e.g. in captivity. These subspecies, races, or populations, are usually described and named by zoologists, botanists and microbiologists. In a monotypic species, all populations exhibit the same genetic and phenotypical characteristics. Monotypic species can occur in several ways: Walter W. Granger Born in Middletown Springs, Vermont , Granger

1632-650: A sequential lineage, with each species evolving into the next ( chronospecies ). Though later Mayr changed his opinion on the australopithecines (recognising Australopithecus ), his more conservative view of archaic human diversity became widely adopted in the subsequent decades. Thus, Peking Man was considered a human ancestor in both Western and Eastern thought. Nonetheless, Chinese and Soviet scientists wholly denounced polygenism, viewing it as scientific racism propagated by Western capitalist scholars. They instead argued all modern human races are closely related to each other. The contributions of Chinese scientists during

1728-434: A short, broad nose. Peking Man also features a sagittal keel running across the midline, highest when it intersects the coronal suture halfway across, and recedes around the obelion (near the base of the parietal bones at the level of the parietal foramina ). All skulls feature an equally developed keel (proportionally), including subadult and presumed-female specimens (there are no infant specimens). The keel produces

1824-483: A species is a binomial or binomen, and comprises two Latin words, the first denoting the genus and the second denoting the species. The scientific name of a subspecies is formed slightly differently in the different nomenclature codes. In zoology, under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN), the scientific name of a subspecies is termed a trinomen , and comprises three words, namely

1920-426: A species. Botanists and mycologists have the choice of ranks lower than subspecies, such as variety (varietas) or form (forma), to recognize smaller differences between populations. In biological terms, rather than in relation to nomenclature, a polytypic species has two or more genetically and phenotypically divergent subspecies, races , or more generally speaking, populations that differ from each other so that

2016-417: A subspecies. A common criterion for recognizing two distinct populations as subspecies rather than full species is the ability of them to interbreed even if some male offspring may be sterile. In the wild, subspecies do not interbreed due to geographic isolation or sexual selection . The differences between subspecies are usually less distinct than the differences between species. The scientific name of

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2112-705: A warehouse, or a parking lot. Four of the teeth from the original excavation period are still in the possession of the Paleontological Museum of Uppsala University in Sweden. Excavation of the Zhoukoudian had halted from 1941 until the conclusion of the Chinese Civil War in 1949. Field work took place in 1949, 1951, 1958–1960, 1966, and 1978–1981. Given the meticulousness of the dig teams, going so far as to sieve out unidentifiable fragments as small as 1 cm (0.39 in) long, excavation of

2208-473: A year in the field, mostly in the American West, as well as write two or three important papers each year. In 1921, he went to China and Mongolia as chief paleontologist of the museum's third expedition there. Under the direction of Johan Gunnar Andersson , Granger helped open and begin excavating the site at Zhoukoudian that yielded " Peking Man " ( Homo erectus pekinensis ). The initial discovery of

2304-469: Is a subspecies or a full species, the species name may be written in parentheses. Thus Larus (argentatus) smithsonianus means the American herring gull ; the notation within the parentheses means that some consider it a subspecies of a larger herring gull species and therefore call it Larus argentatus smithsonianus , while others consider it a full species and therefore call it Larus smithsonianus (and

2400-712: Is abbreviated as subsp. or ssp. and the singular and plural forms are the same ("the subspecies is" or "the subspecies are"). In zoology , under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature , the subspecies is the only taxonomic rank below that of species that can receive a name. In botany and mycology , under the International Code of Nomenclature for algae, fungi, and plants , other infraspecific ranks , such as variety , may be named. In bacteriology and virology , under standard bacterial nomenclature and virus nomenclature , there are recommendations but not strict requirements for recognizing other important infraspecific ranks. A taxonomist decides whether to recognize

2496-507: Is fiercely debated. If Peking Man was capable of hunting (as opposed to predominantly scavenging), making clothes , and controlling fire , it would have been well-equipped to survive frigid glacial periods. If not, the population would have had to retreat southward and return later. It is further disputed if Peking Man inhabited the cave, or was killed by giant hyenas ( Pachycrocuta ) and dumped there, in addition to other natural processes. Over 100,000 pieces of stone tools were recovered from

2592-553: Is further divided into 17 layers, of which fossils are found above Layer 13, and Peking Man from Layers 10–3. The fossil-bearing regions can also be organised into Loci A–O. Major stone tool accumulations occur in Layers 3 and 4, and the tops of Layers 8 and 10. The animal fossils in the locality suggest it dates to the Middle Pleistocene . There have been many attempts to more finely tune the date of each layer, starting in

2688-457: Is rather long, and M 2 is round. Because the archaeological record of East Asia is comparatively scanty, the post-cranial anatomy of H. erectus is largely based on the adolescent H. e? ergaster specimen Turkana Boy from Africa, as well as a few other isolated skeletons from Africa and Western Eurasia. The long bones of all H. erectus have thickened cortical bone (hard exterior bone) and consequently narrowed medullary cavities (where

2784-408: Is typically assumed the rest of the body was as well. In 1938, Weidenreich reconstructed a presumed-female femur to be 400 mm (1 ft 4 in) in length in life, which would equate to a female height of 152 cm (5 ft). He speculated males averaged 164 cm (5 ft 5 in). In 1944, Weidenreich reconstructed a presumed-male femur to be 407 mm (16 in) long, equating to

2880-625: The American Museum of Natural History in New York City . En route to Qinhuangdao, the ship was attacked by Japanese warships, and ran aground. Though there have been many attempts to locate the crates—including offering large cash rewards—it is unknown what happened to them after they left the college. Rumours about the fate of the fossils range from their having been on board a Japanese ship (the Awa Maru ) or an American ship that

2976-706: The American West in 1894 and 1895, Granger became interested in hunting fossils. In 1896, he joined the museum's Department of Vertebrate Paleontology. In 1897, on an expedition to Wyoming , he discovered Bone Cabin Quarry near Laramie. Over the next eight years, the site yielded the fossils of 64 dinosaurs, including specimens of Stegosaurus , Allosaurus and Apatosaurus . News of German and British vertebrate fossil discoveries in Egypt led Granger to embark in 1907 with his superior Henry Fairfield Osborn on

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3072-707: The Indian Ocean , so no fossils could be found to prove this. Nevertheless, Haeckel's model inspired Dutch scientist Eugène Dubois to join the Dutch East India Company and search for his " missing link " in Java . He found a skullcap and a femur ( Java Man ) which he named " P. erectus " (using Haeckel's hypothetical genus name) and unfruitfully attempted to convince the European scientific community that he had found an upright-walking ape-man dating to

3168-718: The Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), a division of the Chinese Academy of Sciences , and was headed by Pei, Jia, and Chinese palaeoanthropologist Yang Zhongjian . During the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, all intellectuals, including scientists, came under much persecution, and among other things were conscripted into manual labour as part of a campaign to turn "intellectuals into labourers and labourers into intellectuals", which impeded research. Though palaeoanthropology

3264-779: The Peking Union Medical College (his employer), the Geological Survey of China (headed by Weng), and the Rockefeller Foundation to found and fund the Cenozoic Research Laboratory and continue excavation. On 2 December 1929, Chinese anthropologist Pei Wenzhong discovered a surprisingly complete skullcap, and the Zhoukoudian proved to be a valuable site, with a preponderance of human remains, stone tools , and potential evidence of early fire use , becoming

3360-772: The Second Sino-Japanese War , the Zhoukoudian human fossils—representing at least 40 different individuals—and artefacts were deposited into two wooden footlockers and were to be transported by the United States Marine Corps from the Peking Union Medical College to the SS President Harrison which was to dock at Qinhuangdao Port (near the Marine basecamp Camp Holcomb ), and eventually arrive at

3456-581: The Zhoukoudian site . At the Chi Ku Shan ("Chicken Bone Hill") locality , they were advised by local quarrymen to dig at the nearby Longgushan ("Dragon Bone Hill") locality. Zdansky found the first human tooth in the site that year, specimen PMU M3550, but only reported it in 1926. On 16 October 1927, Swedish archaeological student Anders Birger Bohlin extracted another tooth, specimen K11337: 3, which Canadian palaeoanthropologist Davidson Black made

3552-409: The bone marrow is stored). Peking Man appears to have much more robust humeri than H. e? ergaster . At maximum constriction at the mid-shaft, the femoral walls of Peking Man take up about 90% of the interior space, as opposed to only 75% in modern humans. For the lateral walls (towards the sides), the exorbitant thickness sharply reduces above the greater trochanter , whereas the medial walls (towards

3648-591: The holotype of a new taxon, Sinanthropus pekinensis . That year, Chinese geologist Weng Wenhao drafted an agreement with all the Zhoukoudian scientists at the time that the Zhoukoudian remains remain in China. In 1928, the Chinese government similarly clamped down on the exportation of Chinese artefacts and other archaeologically relevant materials to the West for study, as this was viewed as an imperialistic attack; foreign scientists were instead encouraged to research these materials within China. In 1929, Black persuaded

3744-461: The late Pliocene or early Pleistocene ; they dismissed his findings as some kind of malformed non-human ape. Instead, in regard to the ancestry of Far Eastern peoples, racial anthropologists had long placed the origin of Chinese civilisation in the Near East, namely Babylon as suggested by French archaeologist Terrien de Lacouperie in 1894, whereby the Chinese peoples regressed compared to

3840-403: The occipital lobes are flattened dorsoventrally (from top to bottom) and strongly project backwards which is a rather variable trait among archaic human populations, and the cerebellum compared to that of modern humans is not as globular and the lobes diverge more strongly from the midline like other archaic humans. Peking Man has remarkably defined canine juga (a bony ridge corresponding to

3936-431: The shaft is more slender. The lunate bone (in the wrist) is modern humanlike, though proportionally small and broad. Compared to an average modern human, the femur is much stouter, flatter, slenderer, and straighter (and maximum curvature occurs nearer the knee joint instead of at the mid-shaft). The anteposterior (from front to back) diameter is smaller than the transverse (from left to right) diameter. The femoral neck

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4032-411: The tooth root ). There is subnasal prognathism (the area between the nose and mouth juts out). The upper jaw commonly features exostoses (bony lumps) in the molar region, which infrequently occurs in modern humans (>6%). Like modern humans and Neanderthals but unlike Java Man, Peking Man has a long, rugose palate (roof of the mouth). The mandible is rather big and, like other archaic humans, lacks

4128-480: The " opening " of China with the rise of Deng in 1978, Western works contradictory to Maoist ideology disseminated through China, radically altering Eastern anthropological discussions. By the late 20th century, human evolution had become Afrocentric with the gradual acceptance of Australopithecus as human ancestors, and consequent marginalisation of Peking Man. To counter this, many Chinese scientists commonly pushed Sinocentric and often polygenic arguments, forwarding

4224-462: The Mao era were under much suspicion in the West for fears of propagandic contamination. In the 60s and 70s, the position of the more ancient Australopithecus in human evolution once again became a centre of debate; in China, Wu Rukang argued that Australopithecus was the "missing link" between apes and humans, but was met with much derision from Chinese peers, most notably soldier Lai Jinliang. Following

4320-484: The Zhoukodian Cave, mainly wastage; but also many simple choppers and flakes , and a few retouched tools such as scrapers and possibly burins . In 1921, Fangshan County , 47 kilometres (29 miles) southwest of Beijing (then referred to in the West as Peking ), Swedish archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson was teaching Austrian palaeontologist Otto Zdansky and American archaeologist Walter Granger on

4416-416: The Zhoukoudian is generally considered to be more or less complete. Every bone, bone fragment or tooth, however small, is picked up and put aside in a basket which each technician has ready for this purpose. A group of technicians always works together, so that practically each lump of earth will be scrutinized. Nevertheless, the loose earth, too, is afterwards transported to a special place and passed through

4512-592: The ancestors of modern humans, such as the Dali Man or the Jinniushan Man . Peking Man's ancestral position is still widely maintained among especially Chinese scientists using the assimilation model, wherein archaic humans such as Peking Man interbred with and were effectively absorbed into modern humans in their respective locations (so according to this, Peking Man has lent some ancestry to modern Chinese populations). On this matter, palaeogenetic analyses —

4608-412: The antiquity of racial distinctness before the evolution and dispersal of modern humans, and racial continuity between local H. erectus and modern descendent races (for example, the "typically 'Mongoloid' features" of a flat face and shovel-like incisors carried over from Peking Man to modern Chinese). They often cited the 2 million year old Wushan Man from central China, which is no longer classified as

4704-505: The antiquity of the Chinese people and the occupation of the region to 500,000 years ago, with discussions of human evolution becoming progressively Sinocentric even in Europe. In the 1930s, Weidenreich already began arguing that Peking Man was ancestral to the " Mongoloid race ", forwarding his multiregional theory where local populations of archaic humans evolved into the local modern humans ( polygenism ), though other scientists working on

4800-453: The binomen followed by the name of the subspecies. For example, the binomen for the leopard is Panthera pardus . The trinomen Panthera pardus fusca denotes a subspecies, the Indian leopard . All components of the trinomen are written in italics. In botany , subspecies is one of many ranks below that of species, such as variety , subvariety , form , and subform. To identify the rank,

4896-460: The cave for hundreds of thousands of years. In 1929, French archaeologist Henri Breuil suggested the overabundance of skulls compared to body remains is conspicuous, and hypothesised the remains represent the trophies of cannibalistic headhunters , either a band of H. erectus or a more "advanced" species of human. In 1937, French palaeoanthropologist Marcellin Boule believed the Peking Man brain

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4992-600: The city was under siege by the CCP Eighth Route Army , who were under fire from Nationalist gunboats (a conflict of the Chinese Civil War ). According to Mr. Wang Qingpu who had written a report for the Chinese government on the history of the port, if Bowen's story is accurate, the most probable location of the fossils is 39°55′4″N 119°34′0″E  /  39.91778°N 119.56667°E  / 39.91778; 119.56667 underneath roads,

5088-532: The conclusion of cannibalism or headhunting. The majority of the remains bear evidence of scars or injuries which he ascribed to attacks from clubs or stone tools; all the skulls have broken-in bases which he believed was done to extract the brain; and the femora (thigh bones) have lengthwise splits, which he supposed was done to harvest the bone marrow. Weidenreich's sentiments became widely popular. Another school of thought, proposed by Pei in 1929, held that individuals were dragged in by hyenas . In 1939, pioneering

5184-472: The country as of 2016 in the Yuanmou , Tiandong , Jianshi , Yunxian , Lantian , Luonan , Yiyuan , Nanzhao , Nanjing , Hexian , and Dongzhi counties. The Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site currently sits 128 m (420 ft) above sea level. The fossil-bearing sediments are divided into 27 localities, and Peking Man is known from Locality 1 ("Dragon Bone Hill"). This 40 m (130 ft) deep locality

5280-606: The country, and lift its standing on the world stage to that of Europe. Consequently, unlike previously discovered extinct human species, notably the Neanderthal and Java Man, the Peking Man was readily accepted into the human family tree. In the West, this was aided by a popularising hypothesis for the origin of humanity in Central Asia, championed primarily by American palaeontologist Henry Fairfield Osborn and his apprentice William Diller Matthew . They believed that Asia

5376-408: The face, and would have been visible when viewing the skull from the top. They project as far as 65 mm (2.6 in), whereas modern humans do not exceed 60 mm (2.4 in). At the back of the skull, the occipital torus extends in a relatively straight line, though laterally curves downward at termination (at the sides of the head). The occipital torus can be bordered by furrows ( sulci ) on

5472-413: The field of taphonomy (the study of fossilisation), German palaeontologist Helmuth Zapfe  [ de ] highlighted parallels between the Zhoukoudian fossils and cow bones gnawed by hyenas he studied at Vienna Zoo . Weidenreich subsequently conceded in 1941 that the breaking-off of the epiphyses of long bones is most likely due to hyena activity, but he was unconvinced that hyenas broke open

5568-497: The field of anthropology, and, surveying a "bewildering diversity of names," decided to subsume human fossils into three species of Homo : " H. transvaalensis " (the australopithecines ), H. erectus (including " Sinanthropus ", " Pithecanthropus ", and various other putative Asian, African, and European taxa), and Homo sapiens (including anything younger than H. erectus , such as modern humans and Neanderthals), as had been broadly recommended by various priors. Mayr defined them as

5664-455: The first American fossil hunt outside North America. The Fayum region of Egypt contained one of the most complete assemblages of Cenozoic animals yet found and yielded a collection of specimens that enhanced the museum's reputation as well as Granger's. As assistant curator of the museum's Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, Granger was sufficiently free of administrative duties that for many years he could spend an average of five months

5760-524: The first in 2010 — have reported that all humans whose ancestry lies beyond Sub-Saharan Africa contain genes from the archaic Neanderthals and Denisovans indicating early modern humans interbred with archaic humans . The common ancestor of Neanderthals and Denisovans in turn interbred with another archaic species even farther removed from modern humans. Peking Man is known from 13 skull and cranial fragments, 15 mandibles (lower jawbone), 157 isolated and in situ teeth, an atlas (the first neck vertebra ),

5856-615: The foundation of Chinese anthropology, and fostered an important dialogue between Western and Eastern science for decades. The fossils became the centre of anthropological discussion, and were classified as a direct human ancestor, propping up the Out of Asia hypothesis that humans evolved in Asia. Peking Man also played a vital role in the restructuring of the Chinese identity following the Chinese Communist Revolution , and

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5952-421: The human line. Though Out of Africa is now the consensus, Peking Man interbreeding with human ancestors is frequently discussed especially in Chinese circles. Peking Man is characterised by a long and heavily fortified skull, featuring an inflated bar of bone circumscribing the crown, crossing along the brow ridge, over the ears, and connecting at the back of the skull, as well as a sagittal keel running across

6048-468: The late 1970s. In 1985, Chinese scientist Zhao Shusen proposed the chronology: 700,000 years ago for Layer 13; 500,000 years ago for Layer 10; and 230,000 years ago for Layers 3. Though these general timeframes are normally agreed upon, the exact date of each layer is subject to intense discussion. In 2004, Shen Chengde and colleagues argued Layer 3 was deposited 400 to 500 thousand years ago, and Layer 10 as far back as about 600 to 800 thousand year ago, during

6144-459: The metric is measurable range from 850 to 1,225 cc, with an average of about 1,029 cc. This is within the range of variation for modern humans. Asian H. erectus overall are rather big-brained, averaging roughly 1,000 cc. Encephalisation quotients (the ratio between observed to predicted brain mass for an animal of a given size, cautiously used as an indicator of intelligence) typically score from three to four for "classic" H. erectus assuming

6240-438: The middle) are three times as thick as those of modern humans at that point. In modern humans, the femoral head features two main strips of cancellous bone (spongy interior bone) that converge into a triangle ( Ward's triangle ), which is absent in Peking Man, likely due to the intense thickening of the cortical bone. Externally, the humerus is like that of modern humans, and exhibits exceptionally developed muscle attachments, but

6336-605: The midline. The bone of the skull and long bones is exorbitantly thickened. The face was protrusive (midfacial prognathism ), eye sockets wide, jaws robust and chinless, and teeth large. Brain volume ranged from 850 to 1,225 cc, for an average of just over 1,000 cc (within the range of variation for modern humans). The limbs are broadly anatomically comparable to those of modern humans. H. erectus in such northerly latitudes may have averaged roughly 150 cm (4 ft 11 in) in height, compared to 160 cm (5 ft 3 in) for more tropical populations. Peking Man lived in

6432-413: The most important dinosaurian and mammalian fossil discoveries of his time, he labored mostly outside the public's eye, respected by his peers as possibly, in the words of his colleague George Gaylord Simpson , "the greatest collector of fossil vertebrates that ever lived." Following Granger's death, the museum renamed its Asiatic Hall of Fossils the "Walter Granger Memorial Hall." Lophocion grangeri ,

6528-475: The most productive Homo erectus site in the world. An additional four rather complete skullcaps were discovered by 1936, three of which were unearthed over an 11-day period in November 1936, overseen by Chinese palaeoanthropologist Jia Lanpo . Excavation employed 10 to over 100 local labourers depending on the stage, who were paid five or six jiao per day, in contrast to local coal miners who only received

6624-456: The nasal area below the brows, ergo the supraorbital torus is completely solid, unlike that of Java Man. The eye sockets are wide. The superior orbital fissure in the eye socket was probably a small opening like in non-human apes rather than a long slit like in modern humans. The nasal bones between the eyes are double the width of that of the average modern human, though not as wide as those of Neanderthals. Weidenreich suggested Peking Man had

6720-422: The nose to project out even farther (increased midfacial prognathism ), though they reduced subnasal prognathism. Overall, their reconstruction aligns more closely with other Asian H. erectus and African H. e? ergaster specimens. Weidenreich characterised the Peking Man skull as being relatively low, ellipsoid , and long; consequently, the breadth is widest at the ear level, and sharply reduces especially at

6816-470: The paucity of stone tools in Asia compared to Europe (an apparent contradiction if humans had occupied Asia for longer), he also stated that Pleistocene Central Asia was too cold to permit back-migration by early modern humans or Neanderthals until the Neolithic . The Central Asia model was the leading consensus of the time. Peking Man became an important matter of national pride, and was used to extend

6912-561: The post-Mao China also witnessed budding environmentalist actions. To this extent, the United Nations declared the Zhoukoudian to be a World Heritage Site in 1987, and custody of the site was handed over from the IVPP to the city of Beijing (which has greater resources) in 2002. The productivity of the Zhoukoudian elicited strong palaeoanthropological interest in China, and 14 other fossil-bearing sites have since been discovered across

7008-580: The public tended to associate with the more famous Andrews. Granger became Curator of Fossil Mammals at the museum in 1927 and also took the post of Curator of Paleontology in the museum's Department of Asiatic Exploration and Research. In 1935, he became president of the prestigious Explorers Club . Although Granger was one of the foremost paleontologists of his time, he did not receive a formal academic degree until 1932 when Middlebury College in Vermont awarded him an honorary doctorate . Granger married

7104-467: The rank of variety are taken to be names of subspecies (see International Code of Nomenclature of Prokaryotes ). As in botany, subspecies is conventionally abbreviated as "subsp.", and is used in the scientific name: Bacillus subtilis subsp. spizizenii . In zoological nomenclature , when a species is split into subspecies, the originally described population is retained as the "nominotypical subspecies" or "nominate subspecies", which repeats

7200-418: The same name as the species. For example, Motacilla alba alba (often abbreviated M. a. alba ) is the nominotypical subspecies of the white wagtail ( Motacilla alba ). The subspecies name that repeats the species name is referred to in botanical nomenclature as the subspecies " autonym ", and the subspecific taxon as the "autonymous subspecies". When zoologists disagree over whether a certain population

7296-609: The site made no such claims. This sentiment, that all Chinese ethnic groups—including the Han, Tibetan , and Mongols —were indigenous to the area for such a long time, became more popular during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the occupation of China by Japan. By the Maoist era, Peking Man was ubiquitously heralded as a human ancestor in China. In the 1950s, German-American evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr had entered

7392-512: The skull base or were capable of creating the long splits in the robust femora, still ascribing those to stone-tool-wielding cannibals. Subspecies In biological classification , subspecies ( pl. : subspecies) is a rank below species , used for populations that live in different areas and vary in size, shape, or other physical characteristics ( morphology ), but that can successfully interbreed. Not all species have subspecies, but for those that do there must be at least two. Subspecies

7488-426: The skull with high-quality casts of six presumed-male specimens and three additional isolated tooth specimens (as the original fossils were lost). With this extended sample, virtually the entire skull could be more accurately restored, except the bottom margin of the piriform aperture (the nose hole). They deflated the cheeks and inflated the lateral margins (towards the side of the head) of the brow ridge, which caused

7584-425: The skull, and the braincase is additionally exceptionally thickened like in other H. erectus . Similar thickening can also rarely occur in modern humans when the diploë (the spongy cancellous layer between the two hard cortical layers of bone in the skull) abnormally expands, but for Peking Man, all three layers of cranial bone have equally thickened. The brain capacities of the seven Peking Man skulls for which

7680-481: The strongly receding forehead. There is marked post-orbital constriction . Most strikingly, the skull is circumscribed by a torus (a strongly projecting bar of bone) which is strongest at the brow ridge (supraorbital torus) and at the back of the skull (occipital torus). All specimens have an eminence projecting just above the supraorbital torus, developed to varying degrees, which is not exhibited in any other H. erectus population. The frontal sinuses are restricted to

7776-563: The subspecific name must be preceded by "subspecies" (which can be abbreviated to "subsp." or "ssp."), as in Schoenoplectus californicus subsp. tatora . In bacteriology , the only rank below species that is regulated explicitly by the code of nomenclature is subspecies , but infrasubspecific taxa are extremely important in bacteriology; Appendix 10 of the code lays out some recommendations that are intended to encourage uniformity in describing such taxa. Names published before 1992 in

7872-633: The superior races of Europe ( degeneration theory ). This came under fire by the time Peking Man was discovered, when China was in the midst of the New Culture Movement and surging nationalism subsequent to the fall of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the Republic of China . These ideologies not only aimed to remove imperialistic influences, but also to replace ancient Chinese traditions and superstitions with western science to modernise

7968-464: The teeth as peg-like, but Tattersall and Sawyer found the teeth to be much larger and obtrusive. Like other H. erectus , the premolars are ellipse-shaped and asymmetrical, but the first premolar (P 3 ) frequently has three roots instead of the more common two. The molar crowns exhibit several extraneous ridges in addition to the essential cusps , which produced a dendritic (branching) enamel - dentine junction, typical of "classic" H. erectus . M 1

8064-426: The temporal bone features a high crest above which overshadows the ear canal . The crest accentuates the mastoid process, which bends inwards as opposed to the modern human condition of being vertical; bending is much more pronounced in presumed-male specimens. Peking Man lacks a true postglenoid process behind the jaw hinge , only a broad-based, triangular projection. The zygomatic bones (cheekbones) project far off

8160-407: The top and bottom margins (for muscle attachment), and the bottom margin of the torus gradually fades. The midpoint of the torus features an additional prominence, the occipital bun . The foramen magnum (where the spine connects with the skull) appears to have been positioned near the centre like in humans, though was proportionally narrower. The strongly developed tori and crests greatly fortify

8256-425: The user of the notation is not taking a position). A subspecies is a taxonomic rank below species – the only such rank recognized in the zoological code, and one of three main ranks below species in the botanical code. When geographically separate populations of a species exhibit recognizable phenotypic differences, biologists may identify these as separate subspecies; a subspecies is a recognized local variant of

8352-1064: Was championed by American geologist Amadeus William Grabau in the 1930s, who pushed that the lifting of the Himalayas caused the emergence of proto-humans (" Protanthropus ") in the Miocene , who then dispersed during the Pliocene into the Tarim Basin in Northwest China where they learned to control fire and make stone tools, and then went out to colonise the rest of the Old World where they evolved into " Pithecanthropus " in Southeast Asia, " Sinanthropus " in China, " Eoanthropus " (Piltdown Man) in Europe, and " Homo " in Africa (again abiding by degeneration theory). To explain

8448-407: Was insufficiently developed for such behaviour, based on its small size, and suggested the skulls belonged to a primitive species and the limbs to a more evolved one, the latter manufacturing stone tools and cannibalising the former. Weidenreich did not believe brain size could be a dependable measure of cultural complexity, but, in 1939, he detailed the pathology of the Peking Man fossils and came to

8544-555: Was intensively communicated to working class and peasant communities to introduce them to Marxism and science. Early models of Peking Man society strongly leaned towards communist or nationalist ideals, leading to discussions on primitive communism and polygenism . This produced a strong schism between Western and Eastern interpretations, especially as the West adopted the Out of Africa hypothesis by late 1967, and Peking Man's role in human evolution diminished as merely an offshoot of

8640-489: Was primarily to introduce the general populace (including those without advanced education) to Marxism , as well as to overturn widespread superstitions , traditions, and creation myths . Nonetheless, research was constricted as scientists were compelled to fit new discoveries within the frame of communism . In 1960, the Cenozoic Research Laboratory was converted into an independent organisation as

8736-463: Was probably truncated like in other archaic humans and non-human apes. The subtrochanteric crest terminates up at the greater trochanter with a bony growth, commonly exhibited in Neanderthals. These traits are not outside the range of variation for modern humans, though are quite rare. The torso is poorly known, but because the limbs and clavicle are proportionally like those of modern humans, it

8832-598: Was still able to continue, the field became much less important to the Chinese government with its new resolve to become economically independent, and popular science topics switched from human evolution to production-related matters. As the Revolution's policies relaxed after 1970, palaeoanthropology and academia resurged, especially with the rise of Deng Xiaoping in 1978 (renowned as a "springtime for science"). The Zhoukoudian had been threatened several times by nearby mining operations or acid rain from air pollution, but

8928-638: Was sunk, to being ground up for traditional Chinese medicine. The affair also provoked allegations of robbery against Japanese or American groups, especially during the Resist America, Aid Korea Campaign in 1950 and 1951 to promote anti-American sentiment during the Korean War . Marine Richard Bowen recalled finding a box filled with bones while digging a foxhole one night next to some stone barracks in Qinhuangdao. This happened in 1947 while

9024-529: Was the "mother of continents" and the rising of the Himalayas and Tibet and subsequent drying of the region forced human ancestors to become terrestrial and bipedal . They also believed that populations which retreated to the tropics – namely Dubois' Java Man and the " Negroid race " — substantially regressed (again, degeneration theory). This required them to reject Raymond Dart 's far more ancient South African Taung child ( Australopithecus africanus ) as

9120-480: Was the birthplace of humankind as it is midway between all continents via land routes or short sea crossings, providing optimal dispersal routes throughout the world. Among these was Ernst Haeckel who argued that the first human species (which he proactively named " Homo primigenius ") evolved on the now-disproven hypothetical continent " Lemuria " in what is now Southeast Asia, from a genus he termed " Pithecanthropus " ("ape-man"). "Lemuria" had supposedly sunk below

9216-540: Was the first of five children born to Charles H. Granger, an insurance agent and veteran of the American Civil War , and Ada Haynes Granger. Granger developed an early interest in taxidermy ; and in 1890, at age 17, he obtained a job working as a taxidermist with a friend of his father's at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Working in the field with the museum's expeditions in

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