Zhoukoudian

Choukoutien - Mogao Caves - Peking Man Site

Useful Information

photography — Zhoukoudian, Peking Man Site, China. Public Domain.

Location:	1 周口店路, Fangshan District, Beijing 102405. Dragon Bones Hill in Zhoukoudian Township, 50 kilometers south-west of Beijing. (39.689027, 115.924408)
Open:	Peking Man Site: APR to OCT daily 8:30-16:30. NOV to MAR daily 9-16. Museum: APR to OCT Tue-Sun 8:30-16:30. NOV to MAR Tue-Sun 9-16. [2026]
Fee:	Adults CNY 30, Children EUR 15, Seniors free, Locals free, Disabled free. [2026]
Classification:	Karst Cave Ordovician limestone.
Light:
Dimension:
Guided tours:	D=60 min.
Photography:	not allowed
Accessibility:
Bibliography:	Noel T. Boaz, Russell L. Ciochon (2004): Dragon Bone Hill: An Ice-Age Saga of Homo Erectus, Oxford University Press, 2004, 232pp., ISBN: 0195152913 amazon.de Jake Hooker (2006): The Search for the Peking Man, Archaeology magazine March/April 2006.
Address:
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History

1918	first discoveries of fossils.
1921	human remains found by Johan Gunnar Andersson, first excavated by Otto Zdansky.
1923	human remains found.
1927	human remains found.
02-DEC-1929	The first complete skull of Peking Man was discovered by Peiwenzhong of Beijing University.
1930	Upper Cave Man Site discovered near the peak of the Dragon Bone Hill.
1933	Upper Cave Man Site excavated.
1973	New Cave Man Site discovered.
DEC-1987	inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List.
SEP-2005	animal fossils discovered in Gezitang Hall.
2014	Zhoukoudian Site Museum opened to the public.

Description

周口店北京人遗址 (Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site) is a famous archaeological site with numerous small caves located in the southwestern outskirts of Beijing. The Zhoukou River is rushing down a mountain valley, zigzags to the south and flows into the Glass River. The Dragon Bones Hill rises over 70 meters above the Zhoukou River. The main cave is located in the cliff face above the river. This site is world-famous for the remains of the so-called Peking Man. This Chinese "apeman" lived in the big cave for about 300,000 years intermittently, from 670,000 BP to 410,000 BP.

After several smaller finds, in 1929 the first complete skull of Peking Man was discovered by Peiwenzhong of Beijing University. They first classified it as Sinanthropus pekinensis. Unfortunately the skull of the first Peking Man was lost during the Anti-Japanese War and its whereabouts are still unknown. The picture shows a replica. After this discovery large scale excavations were done on several occasions, some 26,000 cubic meters of earth were dug out. The result of those excavations were bone fossils of over forty individuals of different age and sex, one hundred thousand pieces of stone implements and a large number of animal fossils. The Peking Man was reclassified as Homo erectus pekinensis.

The most impressive detail of the excavations were several layers of ashes containing charcoal and charred bones. This proved that Peking Man had learned to use fire, a milestone in the development of man. The life of the Peking Man was reconstructed, as the life of a hunter. Looking for prey from his hill, hunting big animals and cooking the prey in his cave. If no big animals were at hand, members of his own kind were not rejected.

The Chinese archaeologists are convinced, that this early Homo erectus is the progenitor of the Chinese people. This theory is in contrary to the international Out-Of-Africa theory: genetic fingerprints show, that all humans on earth have the same ancestors. A small group of modern man, which developed in Africa, left the continent about 100,000 years ago and spread all over Europe, Asia and America. The theory of Peking Man being a hunter was challenged in 1985 by Lewis Binford, an American archaeologist. He claimed that the Peking Man was a scavenger. The team of Steve Weirner of the Weizmann Institute of Science concluded in 1998 that they had not found evidence that the Peking Man had used fire.

This site is more like a park on the Dragon Bone Hill, and there are numerous small caves and other excavation sites, namely Gezitang Cave, Upper Cave, Apeman Cave and Sites 1 to 15. The numerous excavation sites were simply numbered. There is a sort of Visitor Center named Foreign Reception Room which is the starting point of the visit. Nearby is the Peking Man Museum, Zhoukoudian Site Museum) which is the main exhibition at the site, as the caves a re actually small, excavated and only partly accessible. The museum was opened to the public in 2014 and has a quite impressive exhibition with more than 1,600 items on three floors. There are reconstructions of the Peking Man, how he looked and typical scenes from his life. There are numerous original fossils discovered on site, and the model of the first skull of Peking Man discovered in Zhoukoudian in 1929. A highlight is a 10-minute 4D film which is shown at 10 and 15.