Science: Where Is the Peking Man?

The Chinese Communists have already accused the U.S. of abducting one of the world’s two oldest relics of human existence : Peking man (Sinanthropus pekinensis}, whose 250,000-year-old remains* were first unearthed near Peking in 1929 by Chinese Anthropologist W. C. Pei. Dr. Pei, apparently a Red convert, claimed in 1951 that the Japanese had heisted the bones during World War II, and (worse yet) that U.S. “agents” had snatched them from Japan after V-J day.

Last week, celebrating the 25th anniversary of Dr. Pei’s discovery, the Peking radio announced that Communist scientists had uncovered pieces of Peking man in Shansi province. Now on display in Peking, said the Reds, were five of “his” teeth and pieces of arm and shinbone.

U.S. anthropologists had no facts to confirm or deny this latest Chinese claim. As far as they know, the Peking man’s only relics were last seen in December 1941, when they were sent under U.S. Marine guard from Peking to the coast for wartime safekeeping in the U.S. But Pearl Harbor intervened, and the Marines spent the war in Japanese P.W. camps. The Peking man vanished. Some U.S. anthropologists believe that the precious bones lie unrecognized somewhere in North China. Or, by Chinese peasant custom, they may even have been ground up as “Dragon’s Teeth” medicine and tossed off with a cup of tea to ward off senility.

* Approximately the same age and description as Java man (Pithecanthropus erectus) of low brow, apelike jaw and human teeth, whose skullcap and femur were first uncovered by Dutchman Eugene Dubois in 1892.