Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [388]
If the remains of Sinanthropus were the trophies of a more intelligent hunter, who was that hunter and where were his remains? Boule pointed out that there are many caves in Europe that have abundant products of Paleolithic human industry, but the “proportion of deposits that have yielded the skulls or skeletons of the manufacturers of this industry is infinitesimal” (Boule and Vallois 1957, p. 145).
Boule further observed: “We may say that the absence of human bone remains is the rule and their presence the exception” (Boule and Vallois 1957, p. 145). For example, Boule stated that 4,000 cubic yards of deposits were systematically and carefully removed from the Prince’s Cave at Grimaldi in the hope of finding human bones; however, not a single fragment of a human bone was discovered, despite the discovery of numerous animal bones and stones shaped by humans (Boule and Vallois 1957, p. 145).
Therefore, the hypothesis that a more intelligent species of hominid hunted Sinanthropus at Choukoutien is not ruled out simply because its fossil bones have not yet been found at Choukoutien. From our previous chapters, it may be recalled that there is evidence, from other parts of the world, of fully human skeletal remains from periods of equal and greater antiquity than that represented by Choukoutien. For example, the fully human skeletal remains found at Castenedolo in Italy are from the Pliocene period, over 2 million years ago.
9.1.10 Discoveries in the Upper Cave
In the early 1930s, some fully human remains were found at Choukoutien, in the Upper Cave, which lies above the main deposits. Modern researchers, using a combination of carbon 14 tests and studies of faunal remains, have said these human fossils are only about 20,000 years old.
A Sinanthropus upper jaw was found along with the human fossils. The usual explanation is that the Sinanthropus jaw was derived from the Lower Cave deposits. Weidenreich (1943, p. 16) said about the jaw found in the Upper Cave: “it distinctly differs from the other bones found in this cave by the high degree of mineralization, the special color, the primitiveness of the form, the considerable size of the teeth, and the way in which the bone is broken. In all these particularities the maxilla shows a greater resemblance to the Sinanthropus jaws recovered from Locality 1 than to the maxillae of the Upper Cave Man which have been found in connection with their pertaining skulls.”
Stone implements were also discovered in the Upper Cave. According to Pei (1939, p. 16) some of these quartz implements look “surprisingly similar to some pieces found in the much older Sinanthropus deposits.” Pei (1939, p. 16) then added that “it is quite possible that the here described quartz implements were collected by the Upper Cave Man or introduced by natural agencies into the Upper Cave from the Sinanthropus deposits.”
9.1.11 Our Knowledge of Peking Man
All in all, the picture we get of Sinanthropus is not very much like the almost human ancestral hominid seen in textbook paintings and museum exhibits—the expert hunter sitting by his hearth in his cave home. Instead, making use of all the available evidence and points of view, we see through the haze of several hundred thousand years the outlines of a somewhat apelike creature, who was most likely a scavenger who sometimes got scavenged himself—perhaps by his own kind, perhaps by a more advanced hominid.
In Boule’s opinion, Weidenreich and others tended to overemphasize the humanlike features of Sinanthropus. Von Koenigswald (1956, p. 51) wrote: “Our real knowledge of Peking man does not amount to very much. The skull is the best-known factor, and Weidenreich used it to have a rather excessively idealized reconstruction made by the American sculptress Lucille Swan, which came to be known in Peking as ‘Nelly.’” Of course, even the very term Peking “man” carries with it strong, and undeserved, overtones of human attributes and ancestorship.