Jia Lanpo

▪ 2002

      Chinese archaeologist (b. Nov. 25, 1908, Hebei province, China—d. July 8, 2001, Beijing, China), was internationally known for his work as director of the Peking man excavation at the Zhoukoudian cave complex near Beijing. In 1929, while still a graduate student, Jia was named interim overseer of the excavation; he became director in 1935. At the site, Jia helped unearth the first Chinese hominid fossils ever discovered; the Peking man fossils, which were about 900,000 to 130,000 years old and belonged to the Middle Pleistocene Era, included 14 skullcaps, several mandibles, facial and limb bones, and the teeth of about 40 individuals. Though many of the fossils were lost during World War II, Jia had made casts of all of them and had taken some 2,000 photographs of the excavation site. He later directed excavations at other Pleistocene sites in China. A prolific writer, Jia published more than 180 scientific articles as well as two highly regarded books, Chinese Homo Erectus (1950) and Early Man in China (1980).

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