The Peking Man Fossils
Half a million years old, lost in a single week of war.
- EXISTED
- Unearthed 1929, lost 1941
- WHERE
- Zhoukoudian, near Beijing, China
- LOST
- December 1941
- CAUSE OF LOSS
- Vanished in transit while being evacuated from the advancing war
The fossils unearthed at Zhoukoudian from 1929 were one of the great finds in the study of human origins, the bones of dozens of individuals of Homo erectus, some seven hundred thousand years old, who had used fire and tools. “Peking Man” reshaped the understanding of where we came from, and the original bones were a treasure beyond price.
As war engulfed China, it was decided in 1941 to ship the fossils to the United States for safekeeping. They were carefully packed into crates and handed to a detachment of US Marines for transport, and then, in the chaos of the Japanese advance and the attack on Pearl Harbor, they simply vanished. No trace has ever been found, despite decades of searching and rumour. All that remains of Peking Man are the casts made before the originals were lost in the fog of war.
Packed into crates in late 1941 for safe shipment to America as Japanese forces closed in, the fossils disappeared en route and were never seen again. Only the plaster casts taken beforehand survive to show what was lost.