What the Beijingers discovered

In China, there have been legends and myths about "dragon" for a long time. The Chinese have known for a long time that there are often hard, stone-like animal bones and teeth buried underground. These bones and teeth can also have medical effects such as stopping bleeding. The imaginative Chinese people naturally called these bones and teeth that looked strange and had some "miraculous effects" as "dragon bones" and "dragon teeth".

Now we know that these so-called "dragon bones" are actually vertebrate fossils, especially mammalian bone fossils, including elephants, rhinoceros, horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, deer, etc.; the so-called "dragon teeth" , which are the tooth fossils of these animals.

China's "dragon bones" have long attracted the attention of Western scholars. At the end of the 19th century, a German doctor named Hubbell came to Beijing to practice medicine and bought many "dragon bones" and "dragon teeth" from a traditional Chinese medicine store. In 1900, the Eight-Power Allied Forces attacked Beijing, burning, killing, looting, and committing all kinds of evil. Beijing was completely ruined and the lives of the people were not safe, so they could not afford medical treatment. Hubbell's business could no longer continue, so he had to return home. When he left China, he brought a box of "dragon bones" and "dragon teeth". In 1903, when he returned to Germany, he sent these fossils to the famous German vertebrate paleontologist Professor Schlosser for research. Schlosser discovered a tooth that looked both human and ape-like, and this tooth attracted the attention of the academic community.

In 1914, Anderson came to China at the invitation of the Chinese government to serve as a mining consultant to assist China in conducting surveys of coal fields and other mineral resources. He has broad interests and profound knowledge. He never forgets the "dragon bones" of China that he knew when he was in Europe, and often collects fossils in various ways.

One day in February 1918, McGregor Gibb, a chemist who taught in Beijing, took out some fossil bone fragments wrapped in red clay to show Anderson, and told Anderson that the fossil origin was in Beijing. Jigu Mountain near Zhoukoudian in the southwest is also said to have many caves containing similar deposits. Anderson was so excited that he rode a donkey to Jigu Mountain for two days of inspection on March 22.

Zhoukoudian is located about 50 kilometers southwest of Beijing. The strata in that area are well exposed, especially the Pliocene and Pleistocene sediments that are well preserved. In the mountains near Zhoukoudian, limestone formed in the Ordovician period 400 million years ago is very developed and the rock layers are very thick. Limestone is easily dissolved by acidic water, so where there are cracks inside the rock mass, the long-term dissolution of groundwater containing acidic substances has formed many caves and fissures there. Once caves and fissures are formed, water flow and other actions will bring the sediment and dead animal carcasses from the surrounding environment into them. Over time, these sediments accumulate layer by layer to form fissure accumulation or cave accumulation, and the burial The hard parts of the animal carcasses, such as bones, become fossils.

Jigu Mountain is such a limestone hill, located about two kilometers southwest of Zhoukoudian Railway Station. The fossil was found in a dark red sandy clay deposited in fissures. When Andersen arrived, the limestone around the fossil-bearing fissure deposits had been mined out due to people's need to burn lime, leaving only the fissure deposits alone, like a small tower. Anderson conducted small-scale excavations here and found the fossils of two abundant rodents and a carnivore.

In the next two years, Anderson focused on studying the large number of three-toed horses found in Henan, and temporarily put aside the matter of Jigu Mountain.

swollen bone deer

In the spring of 1921, the young Austrian paleontologist Dansky obtained his doctorate in Vienna. Just entering the summer, he came to China, intending to cooperate with Andersen in the excavation and research of the three-toed horse fauna. In order for Shidansky to experience rural life in China, which would benefit his future work, Andersen arranged for him to come to Zhoukoudian first to continue exploring Jigu Mountain.

In August, Anderson invited Grantian, the chief scientist of the Asian expedition team of the American Museum of Natural History, to come to Zhoukoudian with the purpose of teaching Shidansky advanced American excavation technology. One day, while they were excavating in Jigu Mountain, a fellow villager came over and told them that there was a place not far from here where bigger and better dragon bones could be collected. They followed the fellow to an abandoned limestone quarry 150 meters west of Zhoukoudian Railway Station (this is now Longgu Mountain). The fellow pointed out to them a crack filled with sediment. After searching there for a while, they found a fossilized pig mandible. Then, they discovered many animal fossils, including rhinoceros, hyena, and bear. Among them, the most interesting one was a deer fossil with extremely thickened mandible bones, which was later named "swollen deer".

It was at this new site that Andersen noticed sharp-edged fragments of white veined quartz in the accumulation. He believes that there should be no problem cutting animal meat with such sharp blade-like stone flakes, so they are likely to be the stone tools used by our human ancestors. Anderson was very happy with this discovery and speculation, so he tapped on the rock wall and said to Schdansky: "I have a hunch that the remains of our ancestors are lying here. The only problem now is to find them." Him. Don’t be anxious. If necessary, dig this cave all the way to the bottom.”

After Anderson and Grant left, Shidansky continued to work in Zhoukoudian for a few weeks, and unearthed a large number of animal fossils in this new location; one of the teeth was suspicious, but Shidansky did not identify it as a human ancestor. teeth, and regarded them only as those of apes.

Anderson was not disappointed with Zhoukoudian. In the autumn of 1923, he asked Shidansky to continue exploring this new site. However, since the remaining excavable parts were already hanging high on the steep wall, it was very dangerous to continue excavation. After collecting as many fossils as possible, Dansky had no choice but to end his field work and return to Europe soon. In January 1924, Shidansky began research on these Chinese fossil specimens at Uppsala University.

Two summers later, when Shidansky was sorting specimens, he finally recognized a human tooth from the Zhoukoudian fossils, which drew his renewed attention to the "anthropoid" tooth discovered in 1921. After careful study, Shidansky concluded that both teeth belonged to "real people." However, he did not dare to be too sure, so he added a question mark ("real person?") after "real person" in the report published in 1927 to leave room for conclusions.

The news of the discovery of human tooth fossils in Zhoukoudian reached Beijing at the end of September or early October 1926 and was announced on October 22. It shocked the scientific community at the time like a bombshell, because no such ancient human fossils had been found not only in China, but also anywhere in the Asian continent. At the same time, because the fossils were found north of the Himalayas, this was tantamount to fueling the "Central Asian fever" popular at the time.

Zhoukoudian's discovery was recognized by most people in the scientific community at the time. Of course, there were inevitably some skeptics. During a conversation, Professor Gripp, a senior geologist and famous American scholar who was teaching at Peking University at the time, asked Anderson with his eyes wide open: "Hey, Dr. Anderson, what happened to Peking Man? What on earth did it do?" Is he a man or a carnivore?" Andersen replied unhurriedly: "Dear Dr. Gripp, the latest news from Zhoukoudian is: our old friend is neither a man nor a carnivore. , but a representative of a certain stage among them, and she is also a lady!"

What an interesting conversation this is! In the following months, "Lady from Beijing" became synonymous with this important discovery in Zhoukoudian. However, we still have to give special thanks to Professor Gripp. It was the common name "Peking Man" he first used that allowed the news of the discovery of ancient human fossils in Zhoukoudian to spread quickly around the world, and made Zhoukoudian and the ancient humans who once lived there still a household name. Become the pride of our Chinese nation.

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