Special Physics Seminar

The Mystery of Peking Man

Harry C.S. Lam

Department of Physics, McGill / Department of Physics and Astronomy, UBC

Peking Man refers to a set of human fossils discovered near Beijing in the 1920s and 1930s. It consists of more than 40 individuals, as old as 800,000 years before the present, and as recent as 10,000 years ago. Its discovery firmly established in the 1920s a new species of ancient human beings, the Homo Erectus. It also brings along a set of puzzles in anthropology not solved even today. These precious fossils were mysteriously lost on the very day Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. In spite of intense search all over the world after WWII, they have not been found. The intricate tale of its loss and its subsequent search rivals any mystery novel.