THE HISTORY OF THE PRIMATES 



ments, and a femur. On the basis of these fossils, anthropologists are now 

 generally agreed that Pithecanthropus was in fact true man. The age of 

 the fossils is estimated to be on the order of 500,000 years. 



Meanwhile, an important group of fossils was discovered in China. In 

 1927, Black found a single tooth, which he identified as probably human, 

 while excavating a cave near Choukoutien. Two years later, he found a 

 nearly complete skull, including parts of the lower jaw and teeth. Subse- 

 quent finds by Black, Weidenreich, and their collaborators have raised 

 the total to fifteen skulls and other bones representing a total of some 

 forty individuals. The Chinese fossils were originally described under the 

 name Sinanthropus pekinensis, but detailed study by Weidenreich and 

 von Koenigswald has shown that these do not differ significantly from the 

 Javanese fossils, and so the name should be Pithecanthropus pekinensis. 



Collectively, the Chinese and Javanese fossils give a fair picture of this 

 most primitive of known men. He was of moderate stature, and the 

 straight limb bones, broad hip bone, and position of the occipital con- 

 dyles all show that he stood erect or nearly so. Proportionate lengths of 

 arms and legs were much as in modern man, suggesting that this may be 

 a primitive character, while the elongated arms of the apes are specialized. 

 His forehead was retreating, and his jaws projecting, but much less so 

 than those of any ape. His jaws and teeth were rather large, and there was 

 no chin, a structure usually regarded as specifically human. The teeth, 

 while larger than usual in man, agree with those of man rather than with 

 those of apes in all specific differences. The size of the brain case was 

 quite variable. In the Javanese skulls, it varies from 775 to 900 cubic centi- 

 meters, with an average at 860; while in the Chinese skulls it varies from 

 850 to 1300, with an average at 1075 cubic centimeters. This compares 

 with an average of some 500 cubic centimeters in the gorilla and 1350 

 cubic centimeters in modern man. Intelligence is only very loosely corre- 

 lated with brain size at best, and measurements on badly damaged and 

 incomplete skulls are very crude estimates, yet it seems probable that 

 Pithecanthropus was very clever by ape standards, yet very dull by human 

 standards. No cultural remains have been found with the Javanese fossils, 

 but the Chinese fossils are associated with crude tools of chipped stone 

 and bone. Peking man used fire, and charred deer bones indicate that he 

 had learned to cook. Thus his cultural attainments clearly indicate some 

 human intelligence. 



Two more fossils in this series deserve passing mention. An extraordi- 

 narily large jaw fragment was found in Java and described as Megan- 

 thropus; while three teeth, which dwarf even those of a large gorilla, were 

 found in native drug stores of Hong Kong. These afforded the basis of 

 a new genus Gigantopithecus. Weidenreich considered these to be ances- 

 tral to Pithecanthropus, and on this basis he concluded that man was 

 descended from gigantic ancestors. This conclusion was never well re- 

 ceived by anthropologists, but it was virtually demolished by the recent 

 discovery of a lower jaw of Gigantopithecus, with teeth in situ. This jaw 

 is clearly not that of a hominid, but rather it is that of a pongid, and not 

 an extraordinarily large one, in spite of its prodigous teeth. 



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