Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [371]
After Rockefeller Foundation officials petitioned the Surgeon General of Canada, Black won his release from the Canadian military and proceeded to Peking, arriving in 1919.
At the Peking Union Medical College, Black did everything possible to minimize his medical duties so he could concentrate on his real interest—paleoanthropology. In November 1921, he went on a brief expedition to a site in northern China, and other expeditions followed. Black’s superiors were not pleased.
In 1921, Dr. R. M. Pearce, the Rockefeller Foundation’s advisor on medical education, visited Peking on an inspection tour. Afterward, Pearce wrote to Black: “If you think of anatomy for nine months out of the year, it is no one’s business what you do with the other three months in the summer in connection with anthropology, but for the next two years at least give your entire attention to anatomy” (Hood 1964, p. 55).
But gradually the Rockefeller Foundation would be won over to Black’s point of view. The series of events that caused this change to take place is worth looking into.
Late in 1922, Black submitted a plan for a Siam (now Thailand) expedition to Dr. Henry S. Houghton, director of the medical school. Black expertly related his passion for paleoanthropology to the mission of the medical school. Houghton wrote to Roger Greene, the school’s business director: “While I cannot be certain that the project which Black has in mind is severely practical in its nature, I must confess that I have been deeply impressed by . . . the valuable relationship he has been able to establish between our department of anatomy and the various institutions and expeditions which are doing important work in China in the fields which touch closely upon anthropology research. With these points in mind I recommend the granting of his request” (Hood 1964, p. 56). Here can be seen the importance of the intellectual prestige factor—ordinary medicine seems quite pedestrian in comparison with the quasi-religious quest for the secret of human origins, a quest that had, since Darwin’s time, fired the imaginations of scientists all over the world. Houghton was clearly influenced. The expedition took place during Black’s summer vacation in 1923, but unfortunately produced no results.
In 1924, Black took a year’s paid leave to travel around the world, visiting early man sites, museums, and scholars in the field of human evolution. Black returned to Peking determined to give more time to his pet research projects.
9.1.4 Black and the Birth of Sinanthropus
In 1926, Black attended the scientific meeting at which J. Gunnar Andersson presented to the Crown Prince of Sweden the report on the molars found by Zdansky at Choukoutien in 1923. Excited on learning of the teeth, Black accepted a proposal by Andersson for further excavations at Choukoutien, to be carried out jointly by the Geological Survey of China and Black’s department at the Peking Union Medical School. Dr. Amadeus Grabau of the Geological Survey of China called the hominid for which they would search “Peking man.”
On October 27, 1926, Black wrote to Sir Arthur Keith about Zdansky’s teeth: “There is great news to tell you—actual fossil remains of a man-like being have at last been found in Eastern Asia, in fact quite close to Peking. This discovery fits in exactly with the hypothesis as to the Central Asiatic origin of the Hominidae which I reviewed in my paper ‘Asia and the Dispersal of Primates’” (Hood 1964, p. 84). Black in China, like Dubois in Java, had found what he was looking for.
Hood (1964, p. 85) stated in her biography: “Black’s next task was to approach the Rockefeller Foundation through Roger Greene to ask for funds with which to make a large-scale excavation at the caves of Chou-K’ou-tien. To his delight and relief a generous sum was forthcoming. This response showed a marked change in the attitude of the authorities in New