Pei Wenzhong

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Bust of Pei Wenzhong

Pei Wenzhong ( Chinese  裴 文 中 , W.-G. Pei Wen-chung ), also Anglicized WC Pei (born March 5, 1904 in Fengnan , Hebei Province ; † September 18, 1982 ) was a Chinese paleontologist , archaeologist and anthropologist . He is most famous for his discovery of the Shandingdong ( Upper Cave Man ). He is considered to be the founding father of Chinese anthropology.

Life

Pei Wenzhong graduated from Peking University in 1928 and moved to the China Geological Survey where he participated in the excavations of the Peking man in Zhoukoudian . In 1929 he was appointed director of the excavations.

The conditions in Zhoukoudian were rough, instead of vehicles, for example, only mules were available. The first skull fragments were found on December 4, 1929 at 4 p.m. by Pei Wenzhong “ working in a 40-meter-deep crevice, in bad weather, with a hammer in one hand and a candle in the other ”.

Between 1933 and 1934 Pei worked in the Upper Cave , a cave on the summit of Lónggǔshān 龙骨 山 ("Dragon Bone Mountain") and was director of the office of the China Geological Survey in Zhoukoudian. He left the excavations in 1935 and went to the Sorbonne in Paris. His successor in Zhoukoudian was Jia Lanpo .

In 1937, shortly before its abrupt end, by the Japanese invasion, he returned to the excavations.

After Zhoukoudian, Pei worked on many other excavations such as those in Djalainor or Gansu . In 1955 he was inducted into the Chinese Academy of Sciences and became the second director of the Natural History Museum in Beijing. He then worked at the Institute for Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences until one death.

His ashes were buried in Zhoukoudian between the remains of his colleagues Yang Zhongjian and Jia Lanpo .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ KC Chang: Obituary WC Pei (1904–1982) . In: American Anthropologist . tape 86 , 1984, pp. 115–118 (English, abstract ). abstract ( Memento from May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ^ Josef Kleibl: Cesta za Adamem . 2nd Edition. Albatros, Prague 1978 (Czech).
  3. ^ Sheila Melvin: Archeology: Peking Man, still missing and missed . In: International Herald Tribune . October 11, 2005 ( online [accessed November 20, 2008]).
  4. ^ Fresh Hope that Peking Man May Be Recovered . In: From the People's Daily . November 3, 2003 ( online [accessed November 20, 2008]).
personal data
SURNAME Pei, Wenzhong
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 裴 文 中 (Chinese); Pei, WC (anglicized)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Chinese paleontologist, archaeologist and anthropologist
DATE OF BIRTH March 5, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Fengnan , Hebei Province
DATE OF DEATH September 18, 1982