What Is the Second Greatest Mystery in Anthropology?

The second greatest mystery in anthropology (the first was why Neandertals disappeared) was the disappearance of a box of ancient skulls in China during the start of World War II.

Source: Kevinzim/Wikimedia Commons Public Domain

The story begins on a limestone bluff near Beijing (then Peking), which the local people called Dragon Bone Hill (now called Zhoukoudian, then Chou Kou Tien) because old bones were so frequently found there. In 1929, the first human-like skull was found in a cave on the hill by Chinese anthropologist Pei Wen-Chung and others working for the Cenozoic Research Laboratory at Peking Union Medical College. It was called the Peking Man, and it was recognized to be at least 500,000 years old.

A large number of other fossils were also discovered, including animals and many broken skulls, but few whole skeletons. This led University of Chicago professor Franz Weidenreich, who also worked at the Cenozoic Laboratory, to posit that the Peking Man might have cannibalized other hominins. Also on that dig was Jesuit priest and paleontologist Teilhard de Chardin, who had been banished from France by his order for his views on evolution and was sent to Peking, where he became familiar to those at the Cenozoic Laboratory.

The only previous known older fossil in the world at that time was named Java Man, found by a Dutch paleoanthropologist Eugène DuBois in 1891 on the isle of Java. The Java Man fossils were thought to date to about 700,000 to 1,000,000 years ago, so the Peking Man fossils were further helping to establish Darwin’s claims of the early evolution of humans.

The Peking Man fossils were also unique because they were found among many stone tools that were more sophisticated than the 2.5 million-year-old stone tools, but less sophisticated than the later Neandertal stone tools or those of Homo sapiens. Another fascinating find in the cave was the evidence for managed fire, which meant that the Peking hominins had been cooking vegetable-like foodstuffs, seeds, and animals.

The Japanese army had occupied parts of China since the Sino-Japanese war in 1937, and they were extending their influence in this area of northern China at the start of World War II in 1939. The Japanese were already known to be eager collectors of fossils, having previously confiscated some fossils from Java.

Thus, the Cenozoic Laboratory workers were becoming increasingly worried about the many Peking Man fossils and artifacts. Fortunately, since their discovery, Professor Weidenreich had been making casts of the skulls and bones and publishing elaborate descriptions of these artifacts.

At the start of the U.S.’s entry into World War II (Dec. 7, 1941), Weidenreich took the casts (but none of the original fossils or artifacts) and left for the U.S. The Peking Union Medical College was thought to be under the protection of the U.S. Marines, but the circumstances with the Japanese were uncertain, so it was decided to move the fossils: either to southwestern China or to be shipped out of China to the U.S.

It was finally decided to pack up the fossils and have the Marines accompany them by train to the port city of Chingwangtao, where a U.S. ship, the S.S. President Harrison, would take them to the U.S. for safekeeping. Pei Wen-Chung oversaw the packing of the fossils in cotton, and they were placed in two Marine-like footlockers, and the boxes were labeled A and B. One witness said she saw at least one of the boxes carried out to a car in the Medical College compound, supposedly bound for the nearby Marine barracks.

However, the boxes were never seen again. The Japanese raided the entire compound, but apparently did not find any of the Peking fossils, as they interrogated many of the people involved with the fossils in a great effort to find them. Ironically, the Harrison was damaged by the Japanese in Manila, and it never made the voyage to China. Trains were often raided by the Japanese, and so were the Chingwangtao warehouses where the fossils might have been stored prior to boarding the Harrison, but nothing ever turned up.

This is the great mystery of the missing boxes of the Peking Man fossils and artifacts. Did the boxes make it out of the Medical College compound? Unless there was a decoy box, it is likely that the boxes (or at least one of them) made it out. There is no record or evidence, however, that either of the boxes made it to the Marine barracks. From the time that the box or boxes left the compound, there has been no trace whatsoever of their whereabouts.

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There is certainly no evidence that they made it to a train bound for the Chingwangtao warehouses. Records of train raids by the Japanese at this time state that the soldiers plundered and robbed only obviously valuable goods: An inconspicuous box of bones and stones would have undoubtedly been opened and thrown by the wayside, as regular soldiers would have been unlikely to know of their value and would not have been aware that they were highly sought after.

So, in summary, dear reader, you must admit this: The story would make a great movie!