ZHOUKOUDIAN (Choukoutien):
LOWER CAVE
Lo CATION
Large karst cave, totally infilled, exposed on the
northern slope of Longgu-Shan (“Chicken Bone Hill”)
near the village of Zhoukoudian (Choukoutien), some
42 km SW of Beijing, China.
D I s COVERY
- Zdansky, among specimens collected in 1921 and
sent to University of Uppsala, Sweden (first two teeth);
excavations directed by B. Bohlin, 1928-1929; W. Pei,
1930-1937; and the team from the Institute of Paleon-
tology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Bejing, 1959
(mandibular fragments and teeth) and 1966 (braincase
fragments that articulated with prewar finds to make
up most of a calotte).
MATERIAL
Fragmentary remains of up to 40 individual hominids,
including parts of well over a dozen crania in widely
varying states of completeness; some man-dibular ele-
ments; and various postcranial pieces. Many of the cra-
nial fragments of “Peking Man” have been assembled
into quasi-complete calottes. The hominid fossils are
too numerous to list here individually and are subject
to a quirky system of designation; for more detail, see
listings provided by Weidenreich (1941, 1943) and by
Oakley et al. (1975). All of the original hominid speci-
mens except the two teeth first found (sent to
Uppsala), and those discovered in 1959 and 1966, were
lost during World War 11; casts, plus the numerous
photographs and drawings published by Weidenreich
(e.g., 1936a, 1936b, 1937, 1943), remain to represent
almost all of the lost originals.DATING AND STRATIGRAPHIC CONTEXT
Fifteen fossiliferous localities were identified at Zhou-
koudian, of which one (Locality 1; the Lower Cave)
yielded all of the “Sinanthropus” fossils (although one
partial maxilla was allegedly found at the bottom of
the sediments of the “Upper Cave,” a solution cavity in
the top of Locality 1; see Tattersall and Sawyer, 1996).
The Locality 1 deposits have been divided into 17
stratigraphic layers (as opposed to 1-m-thick “levels,”
of which there were rather more); each area in which
hominid fossils were found was baptized a “locus” and
given an alphabetic designation (A to 0) in order of
discovery. Simple, eh? Layers 1-13 have produced
evidence of hominid presence, either directly in the
form of fossils or indirectly through the presence
of artifacts, possible ash deposits, and blackened
(burned?) bones or stones. Most of the hominid fossils
come from the lower parts of the sequence. Layers
1-13 all show normal magnetic polarity and are thus
thought to belong to the Brunhes Chron, the
Brunhes/Matuyama boundary occurring between
levels 13 and 14 (Quian et al., 1985). This provides a
limiting age for the hominid deposits of about 780 Ka.
There has been a long history of attempts to date the
hominid-bearing layers of the Zhoukoudian Lower
Cave using U-series, thermoluminescence, fission-
track, and ESR (see review in Grun et al., 1997),546