At the end of the 1920s, Chinese archaeologist Pei Wenzhong found China's first complete fossil of the Peking Ape Man skull, which is also one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century in China. Peking ape life existed in the Zhoukoudian area of Beijing from 700,000 to 200,000 years ago, hence the name Beijing ape man.
According to archaeologists, the height of Peking Ape Man is about 1.56 meters, and they are more prominent and stout than our modern Homo sapiens, and there is no forehead, short chin, and mouth protruding forward, from the appearance of Beijing Ape Man more like an ape, not like a human.
People who don't understand it may also misunderstand that Peking Ape Man is the ancestor of the current human beings, but in fact, this is not true, Peking Ape Man actually has no relationship with our modern humans.
Australopithecus, Homo sapiens, Homo erectus and then Homo sapiens. Only Homo sapiens are the ancestors of humans, while Peking Apes are homo erectus in biological classification, which is very different from the ancestors of modern humans, Homo sapiens, and there is also reproductive isolation between the two species.
The relationship between Homo erectus and Homo sapiens is like that between lions and tigers, although lions and tigers belong to the big cat family, but they are two very different creatures, and there is reproductive isolation. They cannot reproduce or can only produce offspring that are not able to reproduce, which is reproductive isolation.
Modern humans are not related to Peking apes. The Peking Ape Men are unusually muscular and physically strong, much like the gladiators in the movies, who were in the Paleolithic Age and could skillfully apply various polished stone tools and stone tools.
Even so, the disadvantages of the Peking Ape Man are also very obvious, from the skull can find some clues, the Skull of the Peking Ape Man is clearly angled, plus the bone wall of the skull is very thick, which is about three times that of modern humans.
The brain capacity of Peking Ape Man is only about 1500 milliliters, which is only three-quarters of the brain volume of modern humans, and various characteristics show that Peking Ape Man is a creature with low intelligence.
To put it simply, the Beijing ape man brain circuit is qingqi and not very smart. How silly is that? Although they were already in the late Paleolithic period, they were skilled in the use of various stone tools and lived in groups.
But this intelligent ape man did not mix to the top of the food chain, they also have a natural enemy such as saber-toothed tiger, according to scientists' analysis and speculation, saber-toothed tiger even almost caused the collective extinction of Beijing ape people.
About 200,000 years ago, the population of Peking Ape Man decreased dramatically until it eventually disappeared. If you've ever visited the fossil skull of Peking Ape Man, you will surely find that the Peking Ape Man skull fossil is very different from the skull fossils of other ancient humans.
The fossil skull of Peking Ape Man is obviously only half left, bounded by the brow arch bone, and the orbit and facial bone below are completely missing. The fossil skull of the Peking ape on display now is Wei Dengrui, a German paleoanthropologist who was in charge of archaeological work at the time.
At the excavation site, he found a strange phenomenon, because the number of skull fossils and torso fossils excavated from Peking Ape Man could not constitute the correct proportion, in short, the skull fossils were significantly more than the torso fossils.
Archaeologists have also put forward many hypotheses and speculations, such as the body of the Peking Ape Man was taken away by other beasts, leaving only the head of the Peking Ape Man; the heavy rain caused the skeleton of the torso to be washed away, leaving only the skull.
However, these hypotheses did not hold up after investigation, and after several years of research, archaeologists have given reasonable explanations.
A group of Peking Apes may have the habit of cannibalizing their own kind, and there may be frequent conflicts between them, and the victorious Peking Apes will eat the bodies of the same kind outside and carry the heads of the same kind back to the cave, which also explains why there are more skull fossils than torso fossils.
To test this hypothesis, scientists began studying fossil skulls of Peking Ape Man, hoping to find clues on it. The effort paid off, and scientists did find many traces of stone tool smashing on the fossil skull.
The skull fossils that have been broken from the arch bone of the eyebrow are the result of stone tool smashing, the top of the skull is smashed by stone tools, and the back of the head is also broken by stone tools. Moreover, several fossil skulls of Peking ape people found so far all have traces of smashing.
This shows that about 500,000 years ago, the Peking ape man did have the habit of encroaching on the same kind, and there were many tragedies of such cannibalism. But this may also be the norm of Peking ape life, it is not known.
How did the Peking Ape Man become extinct? In fact, this problem has been inconclusive in the archaeological community, and some scientists believe that in the late Paleolithic period, it may be because of the sudden change in climate that caused the sudden drop in temperature and drought, which may be the cause of the extinction of peking apes.
Other scientists believe that a large-scale plague occurred at that time, which led to the extinction of the Peking Ape Man. Although the cause of the extinction is still inconclusive, the habit of Peking apes to have cannibalism has been confirmed, and it still feels a little scary to think about now. The picture comes from the Network, and the intrusion must be deleted.