Further Evidence relating to Peking Man

Abstract

IN another column of this issue of NATURE (see p. 614) Prof. Franz Weidenreich describes further discoveries relating to Peking man—fragments of femora and part of a humerus. These were extracted from material excavated in the cave of Choukoutein in July last, shortly before further investigation was abandoned on the approach of hostilities. For the actual discovery science is once more indebted to the care and skill as an investigator of Mr. W. C. Pei, by whom the first Sinanihropus skull was discovered in the Choukoutien cave in 1929. In view of the fact that little skeletal material of Sinanthropus has been discovered in the cave, apart from skulls and teeth, the latter now numbering well over a hundred specimens, the new material is of no little importance, as Prof. Weidenreich shows, both in the light it throws on the build and carriage of this early member of the human family, and also for purposes of comparison with other forms. Thus, for example, Prof. Weidenreich deduces from the larger of the two femoral fragments, which he argues to be feminine, that as reconstructed, it points to the stature of its former owner having been approximately five feet, indicating a stature in the male of five feet four inches. Further, the characters of the leg bones and the humerus agree in indicating that, while the femur presents certain primitive characters, which are enumerated, distinguishing it from that of recent man, nevertheless Peking man walked upright. It is possible that in this respect Sinanthropus had the advantage over Neanderthal man. The upper limbs had been completely relieved from the function of locomotion. This freedom of the upper limb would accord with the relatively advanced character of the stone industry which has been discovered in the cave. In other respects the new evidence throws further light on the culture of Peking man. The scorching of one of the bones corroborates previous evidence that Sinanthropus had attained the use of fire, while the way in which the bones have been broken—the illustration suggests that they have been hacked off by a stone implement—points in the same direction as the evidence of the skulls—to cannibalism.