The site of Zhoukoudian, located SW of Beijing, is one of the most productive fossil localities in the history of the human fossil record. During the 1920s and 1930s excavations at several localities of the site yielded thousands of artifacts and fossils, including dozens of fossils representing Homo erectus and early modern Homo sapiens. Unfortunately, in one of the more fascinating side stories in paleoanthropology, nearly all of those fossils were lost in the chaos of WWII and the post-WWII conflict in China. We are fortunate to have excellent casts of much of the Zhoukoudian material courtesy of Franz Weidenreich, who worked on the excavations and produced detailed monographs of the findings in the 1930s, but no fossils…
According to a new paper in the South African Journal of Science, courtesy of Lee Berger (University of Witswatersrand), Wu Liu and Xiujie Wu (Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, Beijing), there is a new chapter to the story and at least a slim possibility the missing fossils might be located.
The account by Richard Bowen represents one of the more credible accounts of the possible dispensation of the original Peking Man fossils. The circumstances of the fossils disappearance do not preclude Mr Bowen’s account that they found their way to being buried next to the enlisted men’s barracks at Camp Holcomb prior to the Japanese occupation of the camp in 1942. Were these the actual fossils? The timing and placement certainly make it a not unlikely possibility that this was one of the original cases. Unfortunately, given the nature of the construction and development in the area where the box would have been reburied by Mr Bowen and his fellow soldier, the likelihood that they were destroyed is high.
There is, however, one small glimmer of hope for the possible recovery of the box – should it have survived the construction in the area.
It would be a remarkable find if true.
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1. Berger LR, Liu W, Wu X. Investigation of a credible report by a US Marine on the location of the missing Peking Man fossils. S Afr J Sci. 2012;108(3/4), Art. #1122, 3 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.4102/
