Beijing, 31 Aug (Xinhua) -- The asteroid numbered 317452 was officially named "Wu Ru Kangxing" with the approval of the International Minor Planet Committee - on August 31, the Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site Museum was held here.
This day marks the 14th anniversary of the death of Academician Wu Rukang, the founder of physical anthropology and paleoanthropology in China.
Wu Rukang was born on February 19, 1916 in Wujin County, Jiangsu Province. He graduated from the Department of Biology of Nanjing Central University in 1940, then went to St. Louis, Missouri to study in the Department of Anatomy of Washington University School of Medicine, Missouri, and returned to China after receiving his doctorate in 1949, serving as a professor and director of the anatomy teaching and research group of Dalian Medical College.
Since 1956, Wu Rukang has been a full-time researcher in the Vertebrate Paleontology Research Laboratory of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (the predecessor of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences), and has served as the deputy director and deputy director of the Paleoanthropology Research Laboratory, and is also a professor at Peking University, Sun Yat-sen University and the University of Hong Kong. Since 1970, he has successively served as vice president, chairman and honorary chairman of the Chinese Anatomical Society. In 1980, he was elected as an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He died in Beijing on August 31, 2006.
Wu Rukang was the first Chinese physical anthropologist to study human fossils unearthed in China. He made first-hand descriptions and comparative studies of most of the human and ape fossils unearthed in China between 1949 and 1966, and his research reports on Homo erectus in Lantian, Zhoukoudian, hexian, Dingcun, Maba, Ziyang and Jianping have always been a must-read reference for Chinese paleoanthropologists. Since the 1960s, The Lamar and Siva apes were once considered to be the ancestors of humans and living large apes, and Wu Rukang merged them in 1987 after studying a large number of fossils unearthed in China to establish a new genus name of Lufeng ancient apes, which was widely accepted by the anthropological community.
In the 1960s, Based on his research on Peking Ape Man, Wu Rukang proposed the concept of "unbalanced development of human physique" in the transition from ape to man. In addition, in the debate on the division of apes, he pointed out that the important characteristics of human beings such as upright walking, making tools, large brains, language, consciousness, and society did not appear at the same time, and the evolution from ancient apes to adults was a large qualitative process, and there was a long transition period, and the creatures of this transitional period belonged to the stage of apes and humans. He proposed that walking upright on two feet marks the beginning of this transitional period; the beginning of making tools marks the end of the transitional period; consciousness and language germinate before tools are made.
In 1956, he participated in the formulation of a 12-year development plan for basic disciplines in China. In order to promote the development of physical anthropology in China, in 1982, he and his colleagues founded the first periodic journal of anthropology in China, the Journal of Anthropology, and served as the editor-in-chief and honorary editor-in-chief. In order to strengthen the scientific research team of the discipline, he also trained more than 10 graduate students, and most of the main researchers of paleoanthropology in China are from his disciples. In 1965 and 1984, Wu Rukang and his colleagues wrote and published "Human Bone Measurement Methods" and "Anthropometric Methods", and participated in leading the formulation of national standards for adult body size in China's industrial population. On the basis of a series of research work, he proposed the establishment of "anthropology of the present" in 1985, advocating that the knowledge of the process and law of physical change and development of modern human groups should be summarized in this field.
Wu Rukang also enjoys a high reputation internationally. His 1962 book Fossilized Mandibles and Teeth of Great Apes, which was reprinted in the United States, Japan, and Korea, is considered a classic of Chinese paleoanthropology. In 1965, he was invited by the Tanzanian government in East Africa to participate in the ceremony of handing over the fossil skull of the "East African" to the Tanzanian government. In the Encyclopedia of the History of Physical Anthropology published in the United States, Wu Rukang is the only "Chinese physical anthropologist" to be included as a special entry.