After the 1941 Pacific War coal outbreak, the fossil of the "Peking Man Skull" disappeared. Since then, people have been trying to solve the mystery of the disappearance of the "Peking Man Skull". In 1998, 14 senior academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched the "Great Search at the End of the Century", but in the end it was fruitless. Later, the Fangshan District of Beijing also set up a special working committee to find the fossil skull of the "Peking Man" in an effort to uncover the mystery of the disappearance of the "Peking Man Skull".
Where are the fossils of the "Peking Ape Man"? Let's first see how it disappeared.
The discovery of the "Peking Ape Man" is a major achievement in the archaeology of the world's paleoanthropologists. In 1918, the Swede Antson stumbled upon some animal fossils near Zhoukoudian, 50 kilometers southwest of Beijing. In 1921 and 1923, he organized people to excavate two human teeth here. Knock on the door of the Beijingers who have been spitting for hundreds of thousands of years.
In 1929, Pei Wenzhong, a young archaeologist in China, excavated a complete skull, which caused a sensation around the world. Since then, there have been many excavations here, and many have found that before the outbreak of the Anti-Japanese War, Zhoukoudian had a total of 5 skulls, 15 skull fragments, 14 mandibles, 147 teeth and many broken limb bones. The "Beijinger" skull is low and flat, the forehead is low forward, and the eyebrow spine is thick, covering the double limit like a roof. Its brain shell is much thicker than that of modern people, the brain volume is about 80% of modern people, the anterior edge of the mouth is extended, the cheekbones are high, the nasal bone is wide, there is no chin, and the teeth are larger. Judging from its limbs and bones, "Peking people" are similar to modern people, in the process of transformation from apes to humans, they can really walk and belong to the human family. The age of its life is generally considered to be six or seven hundred thousand years ago. These discoveries confirmed the existence of Zhenli man and basically established the sequence of human evolution.
These human fossils and some primate fossils found in Zhoukoudian are regarded as national treasures by the Chinese people and are preserved on the ground floor of Peking Union Medical College Hospital. After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japan, the transfer and protection of fossil specimens became a major problem. At one point, they were transferred to the vaults of the Bank of America and later returned to their original locations.
In 1941, relations between Japan and the United States were tense, and American expatriates in Beijing returned to China. At this critical moment, China and the United States reached an agreement: to transport the Peking Ape Man fossil specimen to the United States and return it after the war.
In early November of the same year, all the fossils were packed into two large wooden boxes and prepared to be shipped to the United States. On December 5, a special train carrying fossils left Beijing for Qinhuangdao, where it was scheduled to be transported to the United States by the U.S. scheduled U.S. regular flight President Harrison (scheduled for December 8).
Before the plan could be realized, pearl harbor occurred, various American institutions, including Union Hospital, were quickly occupied by the Japanese army, special trains were intercepted in Qinhuangdao, and the "President Harrison" failed to reach Qinhuangdao.
Since then, the fossil specimen of Peking Ape Man has mysteriously lost its tracks and is still unknown. Among the missing national treasures is the complete skull of the cave man who lived on the top of the mountain 18,000 years ago.
For many years, relevant experts have basically held three attitudes on the question of whether the fossil of the "Peking Man Skull" is alive: one believes that the fossil is still alive, and the other believes that the fossil has been destroyed in the war; Another is that the fate of the fossils cannot be speculated.
Experts who hold the attitude of the fossil in the world are based on the fact that the fossil is so well packaged that even if not many literate people see it, they will not easily throw it away or destroy it. According to the Chinese paleoanthropologist and the last to see the fossil, the fossils, including the "Peking Man Skull", were wrapped in 6 full layers at that time, and were quite careful from the inside out. However, Hu Chengzhi is not optimistic about whether the fossils can be preserved. He believes that under the frequent war conditions at that time, if it was gold and silver jewelry, it may still be preserved, but for the "Peking Man Skull" fossils, not all people who found fossils had the ability to distinguish their value.
Chen Chun, a professor at the Department of Cultural Relics and Museology at Fudan University in Shanghai and a student of Jia Lanpo, the father of the "Peking People", believes that the fossils are most likely destroyed by the war. Judging from the current data, the fossils of the "Peking Man Skull" should have been stored in the basement vault of The Union Hospital at that time, and these fossils were probably destroyed by the Japanese army in the basement after the outbreak of the war. Since the Japanese army suddenly launched a war and occupied the hospital, there may not have been time for the fossils to be transported away.
And at that time, even the president of the Union Hospital and the members of the U.S. Marine Corps were captured by the Japanese, and people could not even escape for their lives, who could care about these fossils? To this day, this mystery, which has lasted for more than half a century, is still a topic of endless debate.