MILLION-YEAR-OLD SKULL.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20917, 6 January 1930, Page 10

MILLION-YEAR-OLD SKULL.

APPROACH TO MISSING LINK. For the past year or tWo a group of Internationally known scientists has been Quietly ,at work upon some fossilised fragments of, human remains in an old limestone bed within a few miles of 'Peking. They have now reached the Conclusion,-after a thorough study of the 'material, that these, remains represent . the .nearest approach to the so-called ; , * missing,, link” .between man and ape eo far revealed to science. The discovery js regarded as overshadowing in , importance even such notable finds as the ' “ I iltdowh- Man ” unearthed in. England In 1812, and the “ Java Ape Man ’’.found 'by -the Dutch army surgeon Dubois in 3891. . All three are believed to belong to approximately the same geological age, , “but the Sinanthropus Pekincnsis, ■or “ Peking -Man,” as. this new genus, has teen called, 'is held to be much more human than either of the others. It appears to stand definitely in the main line of man’s development. The finding of two evidently human teeth furnished the first clue, writes tho Peking correspondent of tho Manchester- Guardian Weekly. Those - wercV brought to light as th* result of investigations made in the first instance by Dr J. G. Andersson, Swedish adviser to the Chinese Geologic .1 Survey, in 1926, at a place called Chouboutcih, among the hills south-west of Peking, where the, fissures of a cavernous limestone bed had been filled with, the hones of prehistoric animals which .- either had tumbled in from above or had been swept in by streams. The bones had been cemented together into a solid - mass by lime, and Dr •on, recognising that they would yield much valuable information regarding the earlier fauna and climatic conditions of the region, aranged to have tboiii excavated and studied. This work was entrusted to ;Dr 0. Zdansky, a ; German palaeontologist, who took the material with him to Upsala, in Sweden, since facilities for a proper study and comparison were lacking here in Peking. During the process of excavation Dr Andersson noted the presence of a number of quartz chips, apparently foreign to the region, and he suggested that,.in spite of their- crudity, these might represent stbnc implements of very primitive man, and that these represented creatures finding the remains of such a man in these deposits. His prediction was verified strikingly during tho study of the material at Upsala. Two molar teeth of human type, one of an adult and the other of a child, were discovered by Dr Zdansky embedded in the bone deposit, and it was soon established beyond doubt that these represented creatures contemporaneous with the “ Piltdown Man ” of Great Britain and the Pithecanthropus Erectus or “Ape Man” found in Central Java. In view of this important discovery a further investigation of the Chou koutein site was decided upon hy the Chinese Geological Survey working in close co-operation with the Rockefeller Foundation, am- 1 the work was put in charge of Dr C. Li, of the survev staff, and Dr Birger Bohlin a wedish” palaeontologist. To Dr Davidson Black, a brilliant young Canadian scientist, was entrusted the study of any further human material that might be found. Shortly before the _ close of the first

season’s field work the second remarkable discovery was made. This was a perfect molar tooth of a child about nine years old, which was taken by Dr Bohlin directly out of the rock material in place. An elaborate study of it by Dr Black, including' X-ray examinations and a minute comparison with the corresponding tooth of a modern Chinese child of the same age, showed unmistakably that the scientists had stumbled upon an entirely new type of hominid, neither human or ape, though closer to the former than to the latter. Studies also showed that the creature was distinct from the “ Piltdown Man,” though closely related to it. The tooth was exhibited by.Dr Black both in Europe and America, and now reposes in the collection of the Chinese Geological Survey at Peking. Dr Bohlin went to Cnoukoutein last autumn, and again worked unsuccessfully under trying conditions for several months. As the temperature dropped it became increasingly--difficult to keep on with the job, and he had to sit at meals with his hands gloved to prevent them from freezing. Nothing new conld be found, and ho was ordered back to Peking. But on the very last day wh P n sifting through the loose sand sand which, had been thrown out from tile excavations, he came upon a law with the teeth still in place. Since then there have been found parts of a number of skeltons, including several more jaws and teeth, a brain case, and what may prove to be , leg and other bones. The scientists are hopeful that it may be possible to get out a complete skelton, in winch case it will be the first Eohthic, or -‘Old Stone Age.” sKeleton ever discovered. These later finds have proved that there is no longer any possible question of the accuracy of the judgment based upon the discovery of the first teeth and that a distinct type of primitive man has been located. It has been definitely established that the “ Pekinmore primitive than any hitherto known genus in tho strictly human line, but was definitely human though" not of the genus homo to which we of to-day belong. According to Dr Davidson Black, this creature had a well-developed skull, revealing a brain of good size, and his teeth were defl mtely human even though the jaw was of characteristic ape formation. Compared with the “Java Ape-man,” he was distinctly more advanced—which, in Dr Davidson Black’s opinion, conthe view that the “ J ava apeman was an off-shoot from the main i ne -m 1 ' 0 , wander c<l south, and lost touch with the parent stock, rather than an intermediary link between an antlnopoid ape aiid man.