Forbidden Archeology_ The Full Unabridged Edition - Michael A. Cremo [407]
9.2.7 Gigantopithecus
Also found in the Pleistocene caves of South China was Gigantopithecus, a very large apelike creature. Weidenreich believed Gigantopithecus was an ancestor of Beijing man, but modern scientists do not accept this. The time range of Gigan topithecus sites in China extends from the Early Pleistocene through the Middle Pleistocene (Han and Xu 1985, pp. 279–284).
9.2.8 Dali
The Dali site in Shaanxi province has yielded a skull classified as Homo sapiens (Han and Xu 1985, p. 284) with primitive features.
The Dali fauna (Han and Xu 1985, p. 284) includes unidentifiable species of Palaeoloxodon (extinct elephant), Equus (horse), Rhinoceros (rhino), Megalo ceros ( large extinct deer), and Bubalus (water buffalo) as well as unidentifiable genera and species of the Castoridae ( beavers). All of the genera found at Dali are represented throughout the Middle Pleistocene and earlier.
Megaloceros pachyosteus (Young), one of the two identifiable species from Dali, occurs at Zhoukoudian Locality 1, and the other species, Pseudaxis grayi (axis deer) occurs at the Lantian man sites, said to be roughly contemporaneous with Zhoukoudian Locality 1 in the middle Middle Pleistocene, if not earlier.
Some Chinese paleoanthropologists suggest a late Middle Pleistocene age for Dali (Wu, X. and Wu, M. 1985, p. 92). While this may account for the human skull, the associated fauna does not dictate such a date. Rather it suggests for Dali Homo sapiens a possible date range extending further back into the Middle Pleistocene, overlapping, once more, Beijing man at Zhoukoudian Locality 1.
9.2.9 Summary of Overlapping Date Ranges
In discussing overlapping possible date ranges, we found that Beijing man Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian Locality 1 may very well have lived at the same time as a variety of hominids—early Homo sapiens (some with Neanderthaloid features), Homo sapiens sapiens, and primitive Homo erectus (Figure 9.7).
Figure 9.7. The probable date ranges of Chinese hominids, as determined by their accompanying mammalian faunas, are shown. Scientists have assigned dates to the hominids, within their probable date ranges, that conform to evolutionary expectations. These dates are represented by the darker portion of each bar. For example, although the faunal date range for the Maba site extends from the Early Pleistocene to the early Late Pleistocene, scientists have used the presence of a Neanderthaloid skull to fix the date for the site in the most recent part of its date range. At Liujiang, the human fossils were given a date completely outside the faunal date range. We call this phenomenon morphological dating. But putting aside evolutionary expectations, the faunal evidence indicates that it is possible that all of the hominids were contemporary with Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian Locality 1 in the middle Middle Pleistocene (shaded vertical bar).
In attempting to sort out this Middle Pleistocene hominid logjam, scientists have repeatedly used the morphology of the hominid fossils to select desirable dates within the total possible faunal date ranges of the sites. In this way, they have been able to preserve an evolutionary progression of hominids. Remarkably, this artificially constructed sequence, designed to fit evolutionary expectations, is then cited as proof of the evolutionary hypothesis.
For example, as we have several times demonstrated, a Homo sapiens specimen with a possible date range extending from the middle Middle Pleistocene (contemporary with Beijing man) to the Late Pleistocene will be pushed toward the more recent end of the date range. One would be equally justified in selecting a middle Middle Pleistocene date within the possible date range, even though this conflicts with evolutionary