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The Peking
Man Site is located at the Dragon Bones Hill in Zhoukoudian Township,
50 kilometers south-west of Beijing. It is screened by the rolling
mountains and ridges on the northwest and adjoins the vast fertile
land to its southwest under the boundless blue sky. The Zhoukou
River rushing down the mountain valley to its right side, zigzags
to the south and empties into the Glass River.
Formed by limestone in the Ordovician period,
the Dragon Bones Hill rises over 70 meters above the Zhoukou River.
Since 1918, 23 fossils and cultural relics have been found within
an area of some 200,000 square meters. It is estimated that the
Chinese apeman, also known as Peking Man, lived in a big cave
on the northern slope of the Dragon Bones Hill for about 300,000
years intermittently, 500,000-600,000 years ago.
The first complete skull of Peking Man was
discovered on Dec. 2nd, 1929 by Peiwenzhong of the Beijing University.
Later, large scale excavations were done on several occasions
with some 26,000 cubic meters of earth dug and sifted. Bone fossils
of over forty individuals of different age and sex, one hundred
thousand pieces of stone instruments and a large number of animal
fossils were unearthed. The most exciting discovery is the several
layers of ashes containing bits of charcoals and charred bones.
This testified to the fact that Peking Man had learned to use
fire, a gigantic stride forward in the development of human history.
It's worth while to mention that the skull
of Peking Man was lost during the Anti-Japanese War and its whereabouts
still remain a mystery.
The site was listed by UNESCO as one of the
world's heritages in December, 1987. It's been the extant site
with the most abundant cultural relics of ancient people in the
world.
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