Peking Man

Once hominids set out from Africa almost two million years ago, they first moved into Asia. One East Asian species, Homo erectus, seems to have enjoyed an extraordinarily long existence, surviving for well over 1.5 million years. This species also had a large range, extending from northern China through Indonesia. Much of our knowledge of Homo erectus in China comes from fragmentary remains found at Zhoukoudian, not far from the city of Beijing. Known as the Peking Man fossils, these bones offer a record of up to 40 members of a psecies that lived in China for at least several hundred thousand years. 

Zhoukoudian, China 

Before scientific excavation began in the 1920s, people dug up fossilized bones from ancient cave deposits near the village of Zhoukoudian in eastern China—and thought they had discovered dragon bones. Later, researchers digging there found fossil remains of an ancient hominid they named "Peking Man."