Perking man
I have had a great interest in learning and understanding about Peking man fossil. The Peking man hominin belongs to the species Homo erectus and the genus Homo. Zhoukoudian, a town near Beijing, was where Davidson Black first found the fossils in 1927. Due to the similarities between the fossil’s features with those of human beings, Davidson initially thought that the fossil was a member of the human being’s lineage (Rukang, & Shenglong, 1983). The fossil had a single tooth, but other features were later discovered, which helped classify it better. Such features included facial and limb bones, skullcaps, and mandibles, as well as teeth, helped change its classification from Sinanthropus and Pithecanthropus to Homo erectus.
More so, the Perking man has been characterized to be on an approximate average of over 1000 cubic by the cranial capacity. It has a 1300 cc brain capacity, which is almost that of modern humans. Other fossil features include a powerful jaw muscle attachment, skull flat in profile, and a small forehead with a keel within the top of the head due to its powerful jaw muscle(Peking Man. 1937). Apart from the many similarities to modern humans, the fossil has other features that differentiate it from humans, such as thick skull bones, browridges in the large jaws, and occipital torus. Excavation helped further classify the fossil under Homo erectus as Davidson found tools and the evidence of fire being one of the main characteristics of the Homo erectus, also known as the tool worker.
As far as understanding evolution is concerned, the perking man clearly shows and explains the spread of improved and new hominid species, the Homo erectus. Such migration took place in an approximate period of one million years. Additionally, evolution from other branches has emerged with different descriptions of the same through evolutionary branches from this species, which are rarely found and have ceased to exist, making people rely on the findings and the research carried out in the past. Evolution makes it clear on the advancement and improvement from the first discovered species to the latest, which Homo sapiens or modern human beings (Peking man anthropology 2020). Better still, the study of the species brought forth the understanding that the fossil had no genetic link with the Chinese, but rather the Perking man was a descendant of new species in the lineage of modern human species from Africa over two hundred years ago.
This fossil research is impressive and interesting with the knowledge that it was initially mistaken and classified under Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, which was later changed after further studying and observing other features that helped classify the fossil to Homo erectus. Through keen observation and extensive research, it was possible to classify species according to the right lineage; they originally came from Africa and not China.