I of enormous size in the collection of dragon bones and dragon teeth

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1 Giant Ape s Jaw Bone Dscovmed in China1 PEI WEN-CHUNG Laboratory oj Vertebrate Paleontology, Academia Sinica GIANT MAN IN ANCIENT CHINA? N 1935 G. H. R. Von Koenigswald, the Dutch paleontologist, found a tooth I of enormous size in the collection of dragon bones and dragon teeth in a Chinese chemist s shop. He believed it belonged to a giant ape that lived hundreds of thousands of years ago in China, and gave it a Latin name- Gigantopithecus, or giant ape. Later he found two more teeth of the same kind, and in 1945 and 1946 F. Weidenreich concluded that the giant ape should be classed in the human family and changed the name to Gigantanthropus or giant man. In 1952 Koenigswald agreed to Weidenreich s conclusion as a result of research on eight teeth in his possession, but the source of the individual teeth upon which they based their conclusion was unknown. This gave rise to three major problems: (1) In what part of China did it live? (2) In what stratum were the teeth found-in what geological age? (3) Was it, after all, a giant ape or a giant man? From December 1955 to January 1956 a survey team, sent to Kwangsi Province by the Laboratory of Vertebrate Paleontology, Academia Sinica, investigated and studied the fossilized animal bones and teeth which were found in caves and which the Chinese used to call dragon bones and dragon teeth. The team first found 47 teeth of the so-called giant ape or giant man in the large collections of dragon teeth in the warehouses of the Chinese Medicinal Herbs Company in Nanning and Canton. Later another three teeth were found in a stratum in a cave in Tahsin County, Kwangsi Province, together with many fossilized animal bones in the same stratum. These discoveries solved the first and second problems. However, the three teeth, together with the large number of bones excavated, provided no solution to the third problem: Was it a giant ape or a giant man? DISCOVERY OF GIANT APE S JAW BONE Between May and September of 1956, Chin Hsiu-huai, a peasant in Changtsao Village, Liucheng County, Kwangsi Province, came upon many fossilized animal bones while digging in a cave on Luntsai Mountain for some mineral fertilizer. Someone told Chin that these were the very things which were called dragon bones in the chemist s shop. He filled his two baskets and carried them to the purchasing station of the Loman Cooperative, but the station had ceased to buy such things. In order to preserve relics the government had proclaimed in April 1956 that in agricultural projects such as irrigation and the opening of new land, it was illegal to dig for and purchase dragon bones. a34

2 Luntsai Mountain in Liucheng County, Kwangsi Province, South China mhere the jaw bone was found. (x marks the location of the cave) The jaw bone of the Giant Ape.

3 836 American A nthropologist [59, 1957 It happened that Wei Yao-she, director of Loman People s Bank, was at the station. He saw the jaw bone in one of Chin s baskets and thought it might have some scientific value, so he persuaded Chin to offer it to the government. With Chin s consent, he took the jaw bone to the cultural bureau in Liuchow himself. There it was identified as the jaw bone of Gigantanthropus. Later Chin not only offered all the dragon bones he had found to the government, but also had his children search in the field where the mineral fertilizer had been spread and discovered the teeth which were missing from the jaw bone. Both Wei and Chin were rewarded by the government. AIeanwhile, the survey team sent by the Laboratory of Vertebrate Paleontology, Academia Sinica, was working in Nanning, Kwangsi Province. Because of this discovery the team organized an excavation in Chin s cave which threw much light on the remaining puzzle. GIANT APE SHOULD BE PLACED IN APE FAMILY The cave in which the jaw bone was found is located on a steep 270-foot cliff on Luntsai Xlountain, an isolated peak half a kilometer southeast of Hsinshechung Village, Liucheng County. Two entrances, one lower than the other, lead to the narrow, 30-foot-high cave. The floor is covered with a layer of hard deposit six feet thick. The jaw bone of the giant ape, as well as bones of other animals, was found in the lower part of this layer. Many fossilized bones of deer, boar, and tapir, and a few of stegodon and rhinoceros, which used to be found in caves south of the Yangtze River in China, were excavated from the same stratum as the jaw bone. According to research on the fossil mammals found in China, these animals lived in the Middle Pleistocene Age of some 400,000 to 600,000 years ago.? Mostly broken, the fossilized teeth were lhose of either very young or very old animals. The much worn teeth on this jaw, which belong to the smaller type in comparison with the teeth of giant apes previously found, indicate that the animal must have been an old female ape. Judging from the surface of the teeth, it was obvious that the animal had a mixed diet of meat and vegetables, quite different from that of modern apes which live on fruit. The huge, thick jaw bone was typical of the ape, but the teeth were arranged not in two parallel lines as is common in an ordinary ape s jaw, nor in the form of a horse s hoof as in man, but with a slight outward curve. The jaw bone and teeth indicate that the basic nature of this animal was that of an ape, although it had many human characteristics. This anthropoid was closer to man than any other ape yet discovered. It is estimated to have had a height of some 12 feet. The discovery of the jaw bone brought to an end the controversy over giant ape or giant man. The giant primate whose fossilized bone was found in this cave was an ape, not a man, and it should therefore be called Gigantopithecus instead of Gigantanthropus. But, as has been mentioned above, the giant ape had many human characteristics. Although not man, it was approaching the status of man.

4 WEN-CHUNG] Giant Ape Jaw Bolze 83 7 GIANT APE NOT ANCESTOR OF PEKING MAN The discovery also helps to solve the following problems: (1) Why were bones of the giant ape and those of other animals found in the same cave? The conditions surrounding the site showed that very little topographical and geological change has taken place during the past hundreds of thousands of years. During the giant ape s time, Luntsai Mountain was more or less the same isolated mountain with the cave on the steep cliff as it is now. Someone has argued that the fossilized animal bones might have been washed into the cave by water from the top of the mountain, but no trace of any water flow could be found during the excavation. There was no sedimentary material of the kind left by flowing water. Deer, boar, tapir, stegodon, and rhinoceros were all hoofed animals and could not have climbed the steep cliff to the cave. The only possibility was that the giant ape carried them to the cave for food. Ameat diet changed the original nature of the ape. This corresponds to the point mentioned earlier, that its teeth indicated that it was a mixed diet animal. Bone fragments found in this cave further verify the assumption. Until now nothing which the giant ape could possibly have used as tools, such as clubs and stones, has been found in the cave: the giant ape used no tools. This accounts for its low hunting ability. Because the giant ape had low hunting ability, it caught either young or old animals, as evidenced by the findings in the cave of the fossil animal bones of either young or old ungulates. (2) What was the giant ape s relationship to Peking Man? Over 400,000 to 600,000 years ago, during the same period the giant ape lived in Kwangsi Province, South China, there lived at Choukoutien, near Peking, North China, Sinanthropus or Peking Man. What was their relationship? Peking Man, representing the first stage in the development of modern man from the ancient ape, made and used simple tools: he was a member of the human family. Since the ancestors of Peking Man lived in the unfavorable environment in the north and had to use hands to collect food, over a long period this activity brought about a corresponding development of the brain. He became more intelligent and he entered into the realm of mankind. Unlike Peking Man, the giant ape lived in a favorable environment in South China where food was plentiful, and it therefore tended toward a marked development of stature. As there was an abundance of food supply in nature, there was no need for the giant ape to acquire the kind of skill required for obtaining edible material. Thus its two forelimbs were not developed and remained unskilled as they were in apehood. Consequently the giant ape never arrived at the stage where it had the ability to utilize tools, and it failed to step into the family of man. This view corresponds to the conclusion derived from preliminary study of the geological condition in the cave and of the giant ape s jaw bone itself.

5 838 A merican Anthropologist [59, Although the giant ape made a step closer to man in that it lived on a mixed diet, its low hunting ability, due to its undeveloped forelimbs, kept it from meeting the needs of its gigantic body and so it became extinct. Its extinction is indicated by the fact that no trace of the descendents of the giant ape were found in later strata. From the above explanations, we may conclude that Peking Man and the giant ape belonged to two separate branches descendent from the common ancestor of man and ape, and that they lived in the same period of time. The former developed into man; the latter became extinct during the course of its development toward man. They were far-related cousins but, contrary to Weidenreich, the giant ape was not the ancestor of Peking Man. NOTES The photograph was sent labelled actual size but inasmuch as this seems doubtful and the author could not examine galleys, indication of measurements is uncertain. W. G. That is, in the sense recommended by the 18th session of the International Geological Congress (1948, London). It means that the Villafranchian in Europe and Lower Sanmenian in China should include Lower Pleistocene.