"PEKING MAN” FIND

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 852, 21 December 1929, Page 29

"PEKING MAN” FIND

MILLION-YEAR-OLD SKULL APPROACH to missing link For the past year or two a group ot internationally known scientists has been quietly at work upon some fossilised fragments of human remains found in an old limestone bed within a few miles of Peking. They have now reached the conclusion, after a thorough study of the material, that these remains represent the nearest approach to the so-called “missing link” between man and ape so far revealed to science. The discovery is regarded as overshadowing in importance even such notable finds as the “Pilidown Man” unearthed in England in 1912, and the “Java Ape Man” found by the Dutch army surgeon Dubois in 1891. All three are believed to belong to approximately the same geological age, but the Sinanthropus Pekinensis, or “Peking Man,” as this new genus has been called, is held to be much more human than either of the others. It appears to stand definitely in the main line of man’s development. The finding of two evidently human teeth furnished the first clue, writes the Peking correspondent of the Manchester “Guardian Weekly.” These were brought to light as the result of investigations made in the first instance by Dr. J. G. Andersson, Swedish adviser to the Chinese Geological Survey, in 1926, at a nlace called Cho'ukoutein, among the hills south-west of Peking, where the fissures of a cavernous limestone bed had been filled with the bones of prehistoric animals which either had tumbled in from above or had been swept in by streams. The bones had been cemented together into a solid mass by lime, and Dr. Andersson, recognising that they would yield much valuable information regarding the earlier fauna and climatic conditions of the region, arranged to have them excavated and studied. This work was entrusted to Dr. O. Zdansky, a German palaeontologist, who took the material with him to Upsala, in Sweden, since facilities for a proper study and comparison were lacking here in Peking. During the process of excavation Dr. Andersson noted the presence of numerous quartz chips, apparently foreign to the region, and he suggested that, in spite of their crudity, these might represent stone implements of very primitive man, and that these represented creatures finding the remains of such a man in these deposits. His prediction was verified strikingly during the study of the material at Upsala. Two molar teeth of human type, one of an adult and the other of a child, were discovered by Dr. Zdansky embedded in the bone deposit, and it was soon established beyond doubt that these represented clieatures contemporaneous with the “Piltdown Man” of Great Britain and the Pithecanthropus Eredtus or “Ape Man,” found in Central Java. A Child’s Tooth In view of this important discovery a further investigation of the Choukoutein site was decided upon by the Chinese Geological Survey working in close co-operation with the Rockefeller Foundation, and the work was put in charge of Dr. C. Li, of the Survey staff, and Dr. Birger Bohlin, a Swedish palaeontologist. To Davidson Black, a brilliant young Canadian scientist, was entrusted the study of any further human material that might be found. Shortly before the close of the first season’s field work the second remarkable discovery was made. This was a perfect molar tooth of a child about nine years old, which was taken by Dr. Bohlin directly out of the rock material in place. An •elaborate study of it by Dr. Black, including X-ray examinations and a minute comparison with the corresponding tooth of a modern Chinese child of the same age, showed unmistakably that the scientists had stumbled upon an entirely new of hominid, neither human nor ape, though, closer to the former than to the latter. Studies also showed that the creature was distinct from the “Piltdown Man,” though - closely related to it. The tooth was exhibited by Dr. Black both in Europe and America, and now reposes in the collection of the Chinese Geological Survey at Peking. A Quantity of Remains Dr. Bohlin went to Choukoutein last autumn, and again worked unsuccessfully under trying conditions for several months. As the temperature dropped it became increasingly difficult to keep on with ihe job, and he had to sit at meals with his hands gloved to prevent them from freezing. Nothing new could be found, and he was ordered back to Peking. But on the very last day, when siftting through the loose sand which had been thrown out from the excavations, he came upon a jaw with the teeth still in place. Since then there have been found parts of a number of skeletons, including several more jhws and teeth, a brain case, and what may to be leg and other bones. The scientists are hopeful that it may be possible to get out a complete skeleton, in which case it will be the first Eolithic, or “Old Stone Age,” skeleton ever discovered. These later finds have proved that there is no longer any possible question of the accuracy of the judgment based upon the discovery of the first teeth, and that a distinct type of primitive man has been located. It has been definitely established that the “Peking Man” was more primitive than any hitherto known genus in the strictly human line, but was definitely human, though not of the genus homo to which we of today ‘belong. According to Dr. Davidson Black, this creature had a well* developed skull, revealing a brain of good size, and liis teeth were definitely human, even though the jaw v:as of characteristic ape formation. Compared with *be “Java Ape-man,” he was distinctly more advanced —which, in Dr. Davidson Black’s opinion, confirms the view that the “Java Ape-man” was an offshoot from the main human line who wandered south and lost touch with the parent stock, rather than an intermediary link between anthropoid ape and man.