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Jia Lanpo
Palaeoanthropologist and Palaeolithic archaeologist who took charge of the Zhoukoudian dig in 1935 and in 1936 found three fairly complete Peking Man skullcaps.
Mural of the event “Peking Man Discovered”, which this person took part in.
From 1927 the Geological Survey of China and Peking Union Medical College excavated Locality 1 on Dragon Bone Hill at Zhoukoudian, in Fangshan southwest of Beijing, systematically. On 2 December 1929 Pei Wenzhong, who was directing the dig, found the first complete Peking Man skullcap deep in the cave, and in November 1936 Jia Lanpo, then in charge of the dig, found three more skulls. By the time work stopped in 1937 Zhoukoudian had yielded many human fossils, stone tools and traces of fire.
Also known as Zi Yusheng
- Roles
- Scientist
Jia Lanpo, courtesy name Yusheng, was born in 1908 in Yutian, Zhili (now Hebei). In 1931 he joined the Cenozoic Research Laboratory of the Geological Survey and worked on the Zhoukoudian excavations; in 1935 he took over field direction from Pei Wenzhong, and in 1936 his team found three fairly complete Peking Man skullcaps in quick succession. He went on to lead or take part in excavations and studies of Palaeolithic sites in Shanxi, among them Dingcun (1954), Kehe (1959) and Xujiayao, and studied the origin and spread of microlithic technology. Elected to the Academy's Division of Earth Sciences in 1980, he died in Beijing in July 2001.
Life and times
Dates 1908–2001
- 1927Peking Man DiscoveredTook partage 19
- 1936Three Peking Man Skulls Foundage 28