摘要
Peking Man, whose emergence from suburban Beijing in the 1920s and 1930s fi rst revealed the existence of early humans in northeastern Asia, has remained at the center of a hot debate for decades. The mysterious absence of the fossil skulls of this
Peking Man, whose emergence from suburban Beijing in the 1920s and 1930s first revealed the existence of early humans in northeastern Asia, has remained at the center of a hot debate for decades. The mysterious absence of the fossil skulls of this Homo erectus （H. erectus） during the World War II added to the complexity of the story and, the difficulty of unraveling the enigma of its age. Because of the lack of an accurate dating technique suitable for the sediments at this site, the chronological niche for the Peking Man has long been obscured with the sands in the cave. A large-scale multidisciplinary investigation was conducted from 1978 to 1984 under the leadership of the CAS Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology （IVPP） and with the participation of Chinese scientists from 16 prestigious universities and research centers across this country. This study temporarily closed the debate by nailing down the age of Peking Man as between 0.7-0.3 million years （Myr） from today. As a well recognized research achievement, this dating has been written into textbooks in China.
