Zhoukoudian

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site - the Caves (taken in July 2004)

Zhoukoudian or Choukoutien (Chinese: 周口店; pinyin: Zhōukǒudiàn) is a cave system near Beijing in China. It has yielded many archaeological discoveries, including one of the first specimens of Homo erectus, dubbed Peking Man, and a fine assemblage of bones of the gigantic hyena Pachycrocuta brevirostris.

Zhoukoudian Peking Man Site - the museum (taken in July 2004)

Fissures in the limestone containing middle Pleistocene deposits have yielded the remains of about 40 individuals as well as animal remains and stone flake and chopping tools. The oldest are some 500,000 years old, contemporary with the Mindel or Anglian glaciation.

During the Upper Palaeolithic, the site was re-occupied and remains of Homo sapiens and its stone and bone tools have also been recovered from the Upper Cave.

As early as the early 1960s, the State Council of the PRC listed it as an important cultural relics location. It has since been improved.

The site is to the southwest of Beijing city, and is accessible via the Jingshi Expressway; it, and Zhoukoudian, are well signposted.

The crater Choukoutien on asteroid 243 Ida was named after the place.