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Peking Man Site
 The Peking Man Site is located at the Dragon Bones Hill
in Zhoukoudian Township, 50 kilometers south-west of Beijing. It is
screened by the rolling mountains and ridges on the northwest and
adjoins the vast fertile land to its southwest under the boundless
blue sky. The Zhoukou River rushing down the mountain valley to its
right side, zigzags to the south and empties into the Glass River.
Formed by limestone in the Ordovician period, the
Dragon Bones Hill rises over 70 meters above the Zhoukou River. Since
1918, 23 fossils and cultural relics have been found within an area of
some 200,000 square meters. It is estimated that the Chinese apeman,
also known as Peking Man, lived in a big cave on the northern slope of
the Dragon Bones Hill for about 300,000 years intermittently,
500,000 - 600,000 years ago.
 The first complete skull of Peking Man was discovered
on Dec. 2nd, 1929 by Peiwenzhong of the Beijing University. Later,
large scale excavations were done on several occasions with some
26,000 cubic meters of earth dug and sifted. Bone fossils of over
forty individuals of different age and sex, one hundred thousand
pieces of stone instruments and a large number of animal fossils were
unearthed. The most exciting discovery is the several layers of ashes
containing bits of charcoals and charred bones. This testified to the
fact that Peking Man had learned to use fire, a gigantic stride
forward in the development of human history.
 It's worth while to mention that the skull of Peking
Man was lost during the Anti-Japanese War and its whereabouts still
remain a mystery.
The site was listed by UNESCO as one of the world's
heritages in December, 1987. It's been the extant site with the most
abundant cultural relics of ancient people in the world.
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