Significance of Peking Man

Abstract

THE relics of Peking man available for study at the Peiping Union Medical College, together with the new skulls, represent twenty-four individuals, and include twelve lower jaws and nearly one hundred teeth. They fully justify the description of them by Prof. Weidenreich as the “richest and most complete collection of human fossils ever recorded, unique in every respect” (The Times, Nov. 25). Since Prof. Weidenreich's appointment to the Rockefeller Institute, constituting him Director of the Csenozoic Research Laboratory in succession to the late Dr. Davidson Blackan appointment made on the recommendation of Sir Grafton Elliot Smith, as the latter now reveals in his letter to The Times, where, however, by a clerical error the name appears as “Weideman” he has naturally devoted much time and attention to the study of Peking man, and in a recent publication (see NATURE, 173, 73) has put forward some interesting and suggestive conclusions as to the relation between Sinanthropus and Mongolian man, while further important results have accrued from his comparative studies based more particularly on the examination of the endocranial casts (NATURE, Oct. 17, p. 689). With this additional important material at his disposal, illuminating studies may be anticipated. While it is too early, and too little information is available, to attempt any forecast of the direction in which results are likely to tend, it is interesting to note that it is stated that the female skull has many similarities to Pithecanthropus, while the male skull is much higher and nearer Neanderthal man. Further, Prof. Weidenreich is reported to have said that the various specimens of Peking man form links between Pithecanthropus and Neanderthal man. Sir Grafton Elliot Smith's letter to The Times, relying on information supplied by Mr. W. C. Pei, now superseded, expresses some anxiety as to the future of these investigations. Clearly, in view of the importance of the material now awaiting examination, any serious interruption or even break in continuity would be a catastrophe.