Beijing Man Site at Zhoukoudian, Beijing, China

The Peking Man Site - a reminder of the prehistorical human societies of the Asian continent - is located at Zhoukoudian, about 40 kilometers south-west of Beijing, and illustrates the process of evolution. Beijing Man is an example of homo erectus. The site has been discovered in 1923-1927 and the finds have been dated from roughly 500,000 years ago. Excavations at the site uncovered human fossils, human molars, teeth, a lower jaw and skull fragments, but excavation came to an end in 1937 with the Japanese occupation. Unfortunately, the fossils vanished during the war, probably in possession of a group of US marines whom the Japanese captured. There even is a theory that the bones sunk with a Japanese ship in 1945.

The Peking Man Site has been inscribed on the UNESCO List of World Heritages in 1987.

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