2 The Peking Man

Man makes his appearance in the Far East at a time when remains in other parts of the world are very rare and are disputed.  He appears as the so-called “Peking Man”, whose bones were found in caves of Chou-k’ou-tien south of Peking.  The Peking Man is vastly different from the men of today, and forms a special branch of the human race, closely allied to the Pithecanthropus of Java.  The formation of later races of mankind from these types has not yet been traced, if it occurred at all.  Some anthropologists consider, however, that the Peking Man possessed already certain characteristics peculiar to the yellow race.

The Peking Man lived in caves; no doubt he was a hunter, already in possession of very simple stone implements and also of the art of making fire.  As none of the skeletons so far found are complete, it is assumed that he buried certain bones of the dead in different places from the rest.  This burial custom, which is found among primitive peoples in other parts of the world, suggests the conclusion that the Peking Man already had religious notions.  We have no knowledge yet of the length of time the Peking Man may have inhabited the Far East.  His first traces are attributed to a million years ago, and he may have flourished in 500,000 B.C.

3 The Palaeolithic Age

After the period of the Peking Man there comes a great gap in our knowledge.  All that we know indicates that at the time of the Peking Man there must have been a warmer and especially a damper climate in North China and Inner Mongolia than today.  Great areas of the Ordos region, now dry steppe, were traversed in that epoch by small rivers and lakes beside which men could live.  There were elephants, rhinoceroses, extinct species of stag and bull, even tapirs and other wild animals.  About 50,000 B.C. there lived by these lakes a hunting people whose stone implements (and a few of bone) have been found in many places.  The implements are comparable in type with the palaeolithic implements of Europe (Mousterian type, and more rarely Aurignacian or even Magdalenian).  They are not, however, exactly like the European implements, but have a character of their own.  We do not yet know what the men of these communities looked like, because as yet no indisputable human remains have been found.  All the stone implements have been found on the surface, where they have been brought to light by the wind as it swept away the loess.  These stone-age communities seem to have lasted a considerable time and to have been spread not only over North China but over Mongolia and Manchuria.  It must not be assumed that the stone age came to an end at the same time everywhere.  Historical accounts have recorded, for instance, that stone implements were still in use in Manchuria and eastern Mongolia at a time when metal was known and used in western Mongolia and northern China.  Our knowledge about the palaeolithic period of Central and South China is still extremely limited; we have to wait for more excavations before anything can be said.  Certainly, many implements in this area were made of wood or more probably bamboo, such as we still find among the non-Chinese tribes of the south-west and of South-East Asia.  Such implements, naturally, could not last until today.