Early Paleolithic human fossils in southwest China. Is the earliest known Homo erectus in China. 1965 In May, the Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences discovered it near Shangnabang Village, Yuanmou County, Yunnan Province. It is located at the edge of Yuanmou basin, and a set of rivers and lakes with a thickness of 695 meters are exposed. It is divided into 4 sections and 28 floors from bottom to top. Yuan's tooth was found on the 22nd floor of Section 4. Since then, a small number of stone products, a large number of carbon chips and mammalian fossils have been unearthed in the same place and at the same level. The geological age of Yuanmou people belongs to the early Pleistocene, which is 654.38+0.7 million years ago according to paleomagnetism.

Yuanmou man's fossils include two upper medial teeth, one left and one right, belonging to the same adult individual. The crown is complete, the tip of the root is incomplete, there are small cracks on the surface, and brown clay is filled. These two teeth are thick, with flat lips and complex tongue lines, which have obvious primitive attributes. They were named "Homo erectus Yuanmou", commonly known as "Yuanmou Man". (See Yuanmou Man's tooth fossil color map)

Seven stone products have been unearthed, and the artificial traces are clear. The raw material is pulse-timely, small in shape, with stone core and scraper. Although it is not at the same level as human teeth, it has roughly the same vision and is not far away. It should be made and used by Yuanmou. Most of the carbon chips found are doped in clay and silty clay, and a small amount is gravel convex lens. The carbon sheet is roughly divided into three layers, and the spacing between each layer is 30 ~ 50 cm. Carbon fragments are often associated with mammalian fossils. The largest diameter of carbon chips can reach 1.5 mm, and the smallest is about1mm. On the plane of 4 cm ×3 cm, there are as many as 16 carbon chips exceeding1mm. In addition, two black bones were found, which may have been burned after identification. Researchers believe that these are traces of human use of fire at that time. This discovery, together with the burnt bones found in Xihoudu culture about 6.5438+0.8 million years ago, will greatly advance the history of human use of fire if it is really evidence of artificial use of fire.

There are 29 species of mammal fossils born with Yuanmou, such as Nihewan saber-toothed tiger, Sangshi hyena, Yunnan horse, ungulate, china rhino and Shanxi axial deer, among which nearly 100% was extinct, and 38.8% of them were in Pliocene and Early Pleistocene, indicating that Yuanmou lived no later than earlier. According to the analysis of animal fossils and plant sporopollen, some people think that the natural environment at that time was forest and grassland landscape, and the climate was cooler than now. The "absolute" age of Yuanmou people is 170 65438+ million years ago according to the paleomagnetic method determined by the Institute of Geomechanics, Chinese Academy of Geological Sciences. According to paleomagnetic analysis and comparison, Institute of Geology, Chinese Academy of Sciences thinks it is 6.5438+0.64 million years. However, some people think that it should not exceed 730 thousand years, that is, it may be 600 thousand to 500 thousand years ago or later.

Beijing natives

Early Paleolithic human fossils in northern China. It belongs to Homo erectus. It was found in the cave accumulation in Gulong, Zhoukoudian, Beijing, and a large number of stone products, bones and fire relics were unearthed. The geological age of Beijingers is the Middle Pleistocene Mingde-Reese interglacial period. According to the dating methods of uranium series, fission track and paleomagnetism, the age is about 700,000 ~ 200,000 years ago.

Discovery and Significance 19 18, An Tesheng, a mining consultant of China Beiyang Government, a Swedish geologist and archaeologist, discovered a fissure accumulation containing animal fossils in Zhoukoudian. 192 1 year, under the guidance of local people, An Tesheng and Austrian paleontologist Danschi and others discovered a larger and richer fossil-bearing site on the northern slope of Gulong Mountain, which was later the famous Peking man site-"Zhoukoudian 1 site". Two human teeth were found in 192 1 and 1923, and identified as human. Because of this discovery, Zhoukoudian began a large-scale systematic excavation in 1927, which was presided over by B. Lin Bu, a scientist in vertebrate paleontology, Sweden, and Li Jie, a geologist in China. 1 left lower permanent molar was found in that year. Bushengda, the head of the Department of Anatomy of Peking Union Medical College and a Canadian anatomist, studied the three teeth discovered successively, and gave a Latin scientific name-Sinanthropopopus Pekinensis (once translated as "Beijing Chinese Ape", the original meaning should be "Beijing China Man") to this ancient human who had never seen before. American paleontologist grip (1870 ~ 1946) gave it a common name: "Beijinger". Now his species has merged with Javanese and established another subspecies, renamed Homo erectus in Beijing. 1929, a complete Peking man skull was discovered in the afternoon of 1929 under the sole auspices of China archaeologist Pei Wenzhong. The announcement of this news shocked the world academic circles. Before this, although the remains of Neanderthals in Germany, Homo erectus in Java (see Javanese) and Heidelberg in Germany have come out, these findings have not been recognized by academic circles because of the constraints of conservative ideas; Even among scholars who hold the theory of evolution, there are different opinions about the origin of human beings and the position of these discoveries in the process of human evolution. Since the discovery of Peking man's skull, especially the discovery of stone tools and fire relics, the existence of Homo erectus has been affirmed, thus basically clarifying the sequence of human evolution and providing strong evidence for the great theory of "from ape to man"

1937, the excavation of Zhoukoudian was interrupted due to the full-scale invasion of China by Japanese imperialism. At that time, there were five skulls in Beijing, in addition to skull fragments, facial bones, mandible, femur, humerus, clavicle, lunate bone and 147 teeth. These precious specimens were lost in the hands of several Americans before and after the Pacific War broke out in June 194 1. After the establishment of People's Republic of China (PRC), the excavation of Zhoukoudian was resumed. After many excavations, five teeth and 1 mandible of Beijingers were found. 1966 also found a broken skull from the pile near the top. In addition, an upper arm bone and a tibia were identified from the broken bones found before 1937. If all the discoveries before and after are counted, there are always Peking man fossils belonging to more than 40 individuals. At the same time, no less than 654.38 million+stone products and rich bones, horns and fire remains were found. The materials of Peking man site are the most abundant and systematic among the materials of contemporary human sites found all over the world, which provide valuable information for the study of early Paleolithic humans and their culture.

Stratigraphic accumulation and the accumulation of Peking ape-man site in 1970s are more than 40 meters thick. The upper 34m is fossil-bearing accumulation, which can be divided into 13 layers from top to bottom according to lithologic changes. It is mainly composed of limestone fragments collapsed in the cave and clay, silt and other residues brought into the cave by running water. There are ashes left by Beijing people with fire in the sediments. The larger ash layer has four layers, and the thickest part of the fourth layer is more than 6 meters. Animal fossils were found above the 0/3 floor of/kloc-,and several stone tools were unearthed in this floor, indicating early human activities.

According to the nature of animal fossils, the age of the113 layer is equivalent to the Zhoukoudian13 site, which is located about 1.5 km south of the site. The latter is also a cave accumulation, with stone products, ashes, burnt bones and mammalian fossils found, which is the earliest remains in Zhoukoudian area. It is roughly the same as the age of the Beijing ape-man site 1 ~ 3, and Zhoukoudian has the site of 15, 4 and 3. Among them, Zhoukoudian 15 has the most abundant materials, including a large number of animal fossils and stone products, as well as ashes and burned bones. There are not many remains in the other two sites, but a human tooth was found in the fourth site, making Zhoukoudian another site where human fossils were unearthed besides the site of Peking Ape and the site of caverns. According to the fact that there are late fossils such as red deer in these three sites, some researchers think that it may have reached the early late Pleistocene.

There is a development process in the chronological study of Peking man sites. At first, An Tesheng and Stansky thought it was Pliocene. By the end of 1920s, French paleontologist De (1881~1955) and China vertebrate paleontology scientist Yang et al. According to the nature of the fauna, it is determined that the site belongs to the Middle Pleistocene, which is later than the Nihewan period and earlier than the Loess period. After the discovery of Lantianren site in 1960s, it was proposed that the Middle Pleistocene in North China can be divided into two stages, the early stage is represented by Lantianren site with Gongwangling fauna, and the late stage is represented by Peking man site with Zhoukoudian fauna (see Paleolithic Archaeology of China). 1976, various methods such as uranium series method, fission track method and paleomagnetism method were used to date the site of Peking man. It is found that the age above 13 layer is about 700,000 ~ 200,000 years ago, and the age below 14 layer is earlier than 700,000 years.

Physical characteristics The widest part of Peking man's skull is slightly higher than the left and right ear holes, and gradually narrows upward, showing a parabolic outline. This is different from the fact that the widest part of the modern skull moved to the middle of the skull, and it is also lower than that of Neanderthals. Beijingers have flat skulls and sloping foreheads. Although higher than apes, but lower than modern people, slightly lower than Neanderthals. The average brain capacity of Beijingers is 1043 cubic centimeters, which is between apes and modern people. Their skulls are about twice as thick as those of modern people. The brow bone is thick and protruding forward, and the left and right sides are connected. There is an obvious sagittal ridge in the middle of the skull top, and a developed occipital lobe pillow in the back of the skull. Beijingers have a short face, a long snout and no chin. The nasal bones and cheekbones are flat and wide, and the cheekbones face forward, indicating that their noses are wide and their faces are low and flat. There is an obvious mandibular round pillow in front of the medial face of mandible. Their teeth, whether crown or root, are weaker than apes, and the texture of crown is simple, but it is much thicker and more complicated than modern people. In addition, the lingual surfaces of canine teeth and upper central incisors have finger-like protrusions extending from the basal tubercle to the cutting edge; The lingual surfaces of upper central incisors and lateral incisors are obviously shovel-shaped. The primitive preservation of Peking man's head is similar to that of Javanese, so they all belong to the development stage of Homo erectus. Beijing people's front teeth are shovel-shaped, with a wide nose and a low face, and there is a mandibular pillow in the front of the mandible, which shows obvious characteristics of modern Mongolian.

The medullary cavity of Beijing people's lower limbs is smaller and the tube wall is thicker (femoral medullary cavity only accounts for one third of the minimum diameter of spine, while modern people account for half; The tibial medullary cavity is smaller), but the size, shape, proportion and muscle attachment point are similar to those of modern people, which proves that they are good at walking upright. In addition to the smaller medullary cavity and thicker wall, Beijing people's upper limb bones are closer to modern people than their lower limbs, which shows that their upper limbs have been able to carry out activities very similar to modern people. The height of Beijingers is about 1.56 ~ 1.57 meters, calculated from a relatively complete femur length found.

Peking man's culture Peking man's cultural relics include stone products, bone horns and fire relics. Stone tools are mainly stone chisels, and stone core tools are few, and most of them are small. The raw materials include timely, sandstone, quartzite, flint and other gravels from the flood plain outside the cave, as well as crystals from granite slopes two kilometers away. According to different stones, Jingba dogs use gravel as a hammer to make stone chips by direct hitting, anvil hitting and smashing. Among them, bipolar stone cores and bipolar stone chips made by smashing method account for a large proportion of all stone products, which constitutes one of the important characteristics of Peking man culture. In the second step, stone hammers are often used to directly knock, mainly on one side, and most of them are processed from section to back.

There are many kinds of stone tools in Beijing, such as kitchen knives, scrapers, carving knives, stone hammers and anvil. They choose oblate sandstone or timely gravel and cut the blade from one side or both sides to make a kitchen knife. This kind of stone tool is large in size. "Scraper" is made of stone chips of different sizes, which have the shapes of disc, straight blade, convex blade, concave blade and polygon, and is the largest kind of stone tools. The number of "sharp tools" and "carving knives" is small, but they are beautifully made, small in size, and some are only the size of fingers. The production procedures and methods are relatively fixed, which reflects a certain technical level. (See the sharp instrument of "Beijingers" in the color picture. Among the known sites of the same period in the world, we have never heard of similar stone tools, and their exquisiteness is comparable. Stone hammers and anvils are their tools for making stone tools. From the striking marks left on the stone hammer, it can be seen that Beijingers are good at operating with their right hands. In addition, traces of use are often found on some stone chips that have not been treated in the second step.

Beijing people's stone tools

The Peking man's stone tools, mainly small stone tools, are one of the two major cultural traditions of the Paleolithic Age in northern China, namely "Zhoukoudian Site 1 (Peking man's Site)-Zhiyu System". This tradition has a wide influence not only in North China, but also in Southwest and Northeast China since the middle of Paleolithic Age (see Paleolithic Archaeology in China).

There are many broken animal bones in the cave of Peking man. Some researchers believe that some of them are bone implements made and used by Beijingers. For example, the truncated antler root is thick and solid, which can be used as a hammer, and the truncated antler tip can be used as a digging tool. It can be seen from these antlers that Beijingers have mastered the method of burning the place they want to cut off, so it is easy to cut it off. For example, many deer skulls only have a head cover like a water ladle, with clear marks on it. Most of them have been processed repeatedly, and the shapes of the reserved parts are quite consistent, which can be regarded as utensils for scooping water. Some limb bones split along the long axis, and one end is pointed or knife-shaped; Some bone fragments have multiple impact marks on their edges and can also be used as tools. However, some scholars hold opposite opinions on whether Peking man made and used bone implements.

Many charred stones, bones, Pu Shu seeds and a piece of Chinese redbud charcoal were found in the ashes of Peking man's cave. Some piles of ashes show that they have well controlled the fire. Although it has not been proved that Beijingers have been able to make artificial fires, they have obviously learned how to save them.

Natural environment Peking man lives in overlapping mountains in the north, surrounded by low mountains in the west and southwest, a vast plain in the southeast, and a river to the east of Gulong Mountain. During the period when Beijingers lived here, the climate and natural environment changed repeatedly. It was cold in the early stage, probably in the early Mingde-Reese interglacial period. Animals that like cold, such as wolverine, cave bear, bighorn deer and hairy rhinoceros, are dominant in animal fossils. It is warmer in the middle and late period, and it is dominated by warm-loving animals such as bamboo rats, monkeys, German buffaloes and porcupines without neck bristles. Due to the excavation of animal fossils such as an ostrich and a giant camel, it is confirmed that there was a dry period here, and there were grasslands and even deserts here. The discovery of otters, giant beavers, beavers and other aquatic animals shows that there used to be a large area of water here.

Beijingers live in caves and engage in hunting and gathering. The broken bones found in the ashes show that they already know the cooked food. Under harsh natural conditions, Beijingers rely on the strength of groups to strive for survival. Seasonal changes, natural disasters, animal attacks and diseases all pose great threats to them. The age of dozens of Beijingers measured from fossils tells us that their mortality rate is extremely high, which can also reflect their poor living conditions.