Abstract:

The Zhoukoudian site is located on Longgu mountain, Zhoukoudian Town, Fangshan district is 48 km southwest of Beijing. The site was discovered in the 1920s, and since the first skullcap of Peking Man was discovered in 1929, 27 paleontological and archaeological localities were found at the Zhoukoudian site(ZKD). Among them, five of the localities yielded Pleistocene human fossils; they are: ZKD-1 (800~ 200 kaBP), Locality 4 (200~ 100 kaBP), ZKD-15 (Late Middle Pleistocene to early Late Pleistocene), Upper Cave (about 30 kaBP) and Tianyuan Cave (about 40 kaBP). The geological age of the sites investigated range from the Middle Pleistocene to the Late Pleistocene, covering more than 500 ka. According to the physical characteristics of the human fossils, the evolutionary status of Zhoukoudian hominids were classified as Homo erectus, archaic Homo sapiens (Middle and Late Pleistocene “non-Homo erectus” archaic humans) or early modern humans. The research at in Zhoukoudian site can be summarized into the following three periods: 1) Large-scale excavation in the 1920s and 1930s with abundant human fossils found at the Locality 1 and Upper Cave. Locality 1 fossils were named as Sinanthropus pekinensis, Peking Man or Zhoukoudian Homo erectus, include five relatively complete crania, more than 150 teeth, several mandibles, and a large number of cranial, facial, and postcranial fragments, totalling about 40 individuals. At Upper Cave, three human skulls, four mandibles plus a few teeth and bone fragmens were found, representing about 7 to 10 individuals. Unfortunately, all the above specimens were lost during the World War II. 2) A period of excavation recovery and site clearing after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. During this time, 11 human fossils were found at Locality 1. 3) New discoveries in the 21^st century included a human skeleton from Tianyuan Cave, and a human parietal bone was identified among the fragments of mammal fossils at the Zhoukoudian Locality 15.

Over the past years, there continues much discussion about Zhoukoudian such as: Whether the Peking Man has unique or derived features which is not shared by the African and other Asian representatives; whether Peking Man is the direct ancestor of modern populations in East Asia; and whether the Upper Cave Man has Mongoloid characteristics. In recent years, with the new discoveries and the innovative research methods, further questions dealing with survival adaptations and genetic structure have been asked. In commemoration of the 95^th anniversary of the discovery of the first Peking Man skullcap, this paper reviews and summarizes the history, research topics and research progress of work discovery at Zhoukoudian Site, in order to provide reference for the discussion of human evolution in East Asia.

Key words: Zhoukoudian, Peking Man, Upper Cave, Tianyuan Cave, Human fossil