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Dragon Bone Hill: An Ice-Age Saga of Homo erectus
Peking Man, a cave man once thought a great hunter who had first tamed fire, was actually a composite of the gnawed remains of some fifty women, children, and men unfortunate enough to have been the prey of the giant cave hyena. Researching the famous fossil site of Dragon Bone Hill in China, scientists Noel T. Boaz and Russell L. Ciochon retell the story of the cave's unique species of early human, Homo erectus. Boaz and Ciochon take readers on a gripping scientific odyssey. New evidence shows that Homo erectus was an opportunist who rode a tide of environmental change out Africa and into Eurasia, puddle-jumping from one gene pool to the next. Armed with a shaky hold on fire and some sharp rocks, Homo erectus incredibly survived for over 1.5 million years, much longer than our own species Homo sapiens has been on Earth. Tell-tale marks on fossil bones show that the lives of these early humans were brutal, ruled by hunger and who could strike the hardest blow, yet there are fleeting glimpses of human compassion as well. The small brain of Homo erectus and its strangely unchanging culture indicate that the species could not talk. Part of that primitive culture included ritualized
232 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2004
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
October 6, 2020
A bit laboriously detailed at the outset, particularly the description of the excavation site and the cast of historic figures and fate of the bones of Peking Man (eventually lost during WWI), enough such that even a human origins geek like myself was ready for things to move along. Once the book settles into the details of Homo Erectus the species rather than Peking Man the specimen the book hits its stride, albeit a bit stodgily. If you're not aware, and I would hazard that less than one percent of one percent of people are: Homo Erectus (Translation: "Upright Man") lived for 1.5 million years, or 15 times longer than our current stay as Homo Sapiens Sapiens (or "Wise, Wise Man" translation: Wise-Ass Man). Where did they come from? Well as far as we know, Homo Erectus was the first hominid to trot out of Africa and wield fire, likely to fend off and scavenge the spoils of large predators. Homo Erectus descended from one of the varied australopithecines who themselves first begot Homo Ergaster (a sort of primitive h. erectus), before later becoming (through speciation) Homo Heidelbergensis, who would beget Neanderthalensis and ourselves. The authors appear to offer or prop up new-ish hypothesis on old Erectus, namely that their unmistakable thick brows and skulls were selected for the brutal inner-species violence that pitted the species primarily against itself, much the way horned ungulates evolved to spar during the rut, translation: our ancestors really liked - or natural selection saw it fit - to beat the shit out of each other, primarily through blows to the face and head. In order to more effectively cool and transmit more blood to an enlarging brain, this thick-skull trait faded along with Erectus. Though our own Wise Ass means of inner-species brutishness achievable at less proximate distances (see: atalatl or drone missile) remains intact.
The Dragon Bone hill site in China is home to a wealth of Erectus fossils and even some relatively recent Homo Sapiens fossils, indicating a rich history of usage for hundreds of thousands of years by ourselves and our ancestors. It was also a favorite haunt of a very large, now extinct species of hyena in the Pleistocene, the demise of many of the H. Erectus specimens (collectively representing "Peking Man") unearthed in the 1920s through to today, as the site is still yielding new findings. Written by paleontologists, one would expect a slow, rigorous unveiling of text supported by copious endnotes; and so it is that Boaz and Ciochon dust off historical detail upon detail, before revealing the bones of the more interesting story of the species, not just the specimen at Dragon Bone Hill.
While it is easy to shrug-off pre-history as a foggy melee that we have no use conjuring, consider the Aucheulean Hand Axe, an artifact 1.5 million years in production, and the technological mainstay of Homo Erectus during its spread into Eurasia and beyond into the far east. A tear-shaped stone tool, originally designed for its utility, it is literally produced and found throughout so much of the world and at such a volume that it may have a much more interesting use than merely skinning the remains of a hyena meal. For more on the Aucheulean Hand Axe of Homo Erectus - the simplest but perhaps most important manufactured object in the history of humanity (had Homo Erectus not used it successfully for 1.5 million years we would likely not be here) - I recommend visiting the following link to Denis Dutton's TED talk on the origins of beauty. It is probably a little dubious to paleo-anthropologists, but a nifty cross-disciplinary synthesis coupling the evolutionary roots of aestheticism and the charming tear-shaped tool found world-over thanks to the protagonist of Dragon Bone Hill:
http://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton...
(My man Herbert Read even gets a nod (good-natured jab?) at the 1:49 mark if you watch closely the amusing illustration that accompanies the short lecture.)
The Dragon Bone hill site in China is home to a wealth of Erectus fossils and even some relatively recent Homo Sapiens fossils, indicating a rich history of usage for hundreds of thousands of years by ourselves and our ancestors. It was also a favorite haunt of a very large, now extinct species of hyena in the Pleistocene, the demise of many of the H. Erectus specimens (collectively representing "Peking Man") unearthed in the 1920s through to today, as the site is still yielding new findings. Written by paleontologists, one would expect a slow, rigorous unveiling of text supported by copious endnotes; and so it is that Boaz and Ciochon dust off historical detail upon detail, before revealing the bones of the more interesting story of the species, not just the specimen at Dragon Bone Hill.
While it is easy to shrug-off pre-history as a foggy melee that we have no use conjuring, consider the Aucheulean Hand Axe, an artifact 1.5 million years in production, and the technological mainstay of Homo Erectus during its spread into Eurasia and beyond into the far east. A tear-shaped stone tool, originally designed for its utility, it is literally produced and found throughout so much of the world and at such a volume that it may have a much more interesting use than merely skinning the remains of a hyena meal. For more on the Aucheulean Hand Axe of Homo Erectus - the simplest but perhaps most important manufactured object in the history of humanity (had Homo Erectus not used it successfully for 1.5 million years we would likely not be here) - I recommend visiting the following link to Denis Dutton's TED talk on the origins of beauty. It is probably a little dubious to paleo-anthropologists, but a nifty cross-disciplinary synthesis coupling the evolutionary roots of aestheticism and the charming tear-shaped tool found world-over thanks to the protagonist of Dragon Bone Hill:
http://www.ted.com/talks/denis_dutton...
(My man Herbert Read even gets a nod (good-natured jab?) at the 1:49 mark if you watch closely the amusing illustration that accompanies the short lecture.)
September 11, 2023
Extremely well researched and thoroughly presented. This is less of a book meant for public consumption and more of an extended research paper filled with references, scientific history, graphs, and the like, culminating in the unveiling of a new theory of the evolutionary model and offering suggestions on how to potentially disprove it with future research.
It's a somewhat dry and academic read, but informative for the armchair paleoanthropologist.
It's a somewhat dry and academic read, but informative for the armchair paleoanthropologist.
February 20, 2025
Very outdated in 2025.
August 21, 2014
This weekend I read Dragon Bone Hill by Noel T. Boaz and Russell L. Ciochon. I thought I would enjoy it a lot as it combined my love of China with my love of early hominids. It was a very well written book, covering everything you'd want to know. I wish I could find the equivalent book written about Neanderthals.
They started with the history of the excavations, the scientists involved and the early theories. They looked at the disappearance of the bones, and the different theories and controversies surrounding them. Then they looked at the modern interpretation of Peking Man and what he was like, and the world around him was like.
The looked at his skull, and proposed that it was thickened to protect from head trauma, and showed how the thickening related to different head injuries, quite interesting. They looked at the different arguments over the skills of Peking man, how it seemed likely that he had used fire, though some of the evidence that had gone to prove this in the past had since been disproved. They looked at his tool use how, unlike homo erectus in other parts of the world he never figured out how to make stone axes. Rather than questioning the mental ability of Asian homo erectus versus African homo erectus, they pointed out the differences in the type of stone available to Peking man, and how this would have not made effective stone axes, so it was more an environmental limitation than a intellectual one.
There was also some fascinating evidence about how homo erectus was more likely to be a scavenger than a hunter. Not only were his tools not sufficient to hunt a large mammal. But there were some interesting arguments involving tape worms that had come from the carviores and had adapted themselves to homo erectus. (and modern man). Science is fun because you can figure out things like eating behaviors, by tape worms, such a different form of evidence and approaches than is used in history and archeology.
The book also looked at the climate that Peking man lived in. He seemed to only be in the north during the more temperate times and headed south during the colder times. They also analyzed his ability to speak, which is very unlikely. Though as it's debatable whether or not Neanderthals had language it didn't come as much of a surprise to me that the signs seemed to be that homo-erectus did not. Though there were interesting discussions about microcepahlics that reminded me of Mandy and how much of a scientific anomaly she really is.
They also looked at cannibalism, I had to question the idea that cannibalism was really relevant to how much of a "primitive" versus "sophisticated" species homo-erectus was as cannibalism seems to be such a common trait for homo sapians. But the evidence seemed to be in favor of them having been cannibals, with no care of the dead at all as seen by Neanderthals. Though the skull breakages that were earlier thought to indicate cannibalism were later shown to have been made by hyenas.
It was interesting to look at the way things had previously been seen, a nice little tribe living together in the cave, and the way things are now believed to have been, it was actually a hyena den that the homo erectus were able to scare off through their use of fire to scavenge the remains of the hyena's meals.
The end of the book talked a lot about the idea of Clinial replacement, which I have to say I didn't understand completely. Human evolutionary theory is really something I'm just beginning to look into. And while I find it fascinating there is so much I just don't understand. I think perhaps I should get a book on that soon. I just love learning about the early hominids, and looking at ancient skulls so much. But it was a fun read and it's good to take a break now and then and read something different that you don't know very much about.
They started with the history of the excavations, the scientists involved and the early theories. They looked at the disappearance of the bones, and the different theories and controversies surrounding them. Then they looked at the modern interpretation of Peking Man and what he was like, and the world around him was like.
The looked at his skull, and proposed that it was thickened to protect from head trauma, and showed how the thickening related to different head injuries, quite interesting. They looked at the different arguments over the skills of Peking man, how it seemed likely that he had used fire, though some of the evidence that had gone to prove this in the past had since been disproved. They looked at his tool use how, unlike homo erectus in other parts of the world he never figured out how to make stone axes. Rather than questioning the mental ability of Asian homo erectus versus African homo erectus, they pointed out the differences in the type of stone available to Peking man, and how this would have not made effective stone axes, so it was more an environmental limitation than a intellectual one.
There was also some fascinating evidence about how homo erectus was more likely to be a scavenger than a hunter. Not only were his tools not sufficient to hunt a large mammal. But there were some interesting arguments involving tape worms that had come from the carviores and had adapted themselves to homo erectus. (and modern man). Science is fun because you can figure out things like eating behaviors, by tape worms, such a different form of evidence and approaches than is used in history and archeology.
The book also looked at the climate that Peking man lived in. He seemed to only be in the north during the more temperate times and headed south during the colder times. They also analyzed his ability to speak, which is very unlikely. Though as it's debatable whether or not Neanderthals had language it didn't come as much of a surprise to me that the signs seemed to be that homo-erectus did not. Though there were interesting discussions about microcepahlics that reminded me of Mandy and how much of a scientific anomaly she really is.
They also looked at cannibalism, I had to question the idea that cannibalism was really relevant to how much of a "primitive" versus "sophisticated" species homo-erectus was as cannibalism seems to be such a common trait for homo sapians. But the evidence seemed to be in favor of them having been cannibals, with no care of the dead at all as seen by Neanderthals. Though the skull breakages that were earlier thought to indicate cannibalism were later shown to have been made by hyenas.
It was interesting to look at the way things had previously been seen, a nice little tribe living together in the cave, and the way things are now believed to have been, it was actually a hyena den that the homo erectus were able to scare off through their use of fire to scavenge the remains of the hyena's meals.
The end of the book talked a lot about the idea of Clinial replacement, which I have to say I didn't understand completely. Human evolutionary theory is really something I'm just beginning to look into. And while I find it fascinating there is so much I just don't understand. I think perhaps I should get a book on that soon. I just love learning about the early hominids, and looking at ancient skulls so much. But it was a fun read and it's good to take a break now and then and read something different that you don't know very much about.
December 23, 2012
The book actually reads as an extended paper whereby Boas and Ciochon present Dragon Bone Hill as a test case for their theory of Clinal-replacement, as opposed to "Out of Africa" and Multi-regionalism theories ) for the evolution and geographical diffusion of hominids. That is not to suggest that the book is by any means a dry account, rather that it is a very well put together, step by step, gathering, analysis, and discussion of the evidence in support of their theory. They begin with a fascinating account of the discovery and early excavations at the Chinese site including the work of Davidson Black, Franz Weidenreich, and the later collaboration between Weidenreich and Von Koenigswald in establishing the relationship between Peking Man (Sinanthropus pekinensis) and Java Man (Pithecanthropus erectus). The chapter on the WW II fate of the Peking Man fossils reads like a detective story and ends in the authors conclusion that the bones, tossed onto the lawn of the medical college by the invading Japanese, were likely gathered up by the local Chinese and ground to powder for use as traditional "dragon bone" medications. Also covered is Weidenreich's association with and influence on the geneticist Theodosius Dobzhansky and the work of Sherwood Anderson who helped establish the "new physical anthropology", a synthesis of Weidenreich's traditional physical methods and Dobzhansky's newly developed genetic analysis.
Succeeding chapters detail the findings at Dragon Bone Hill and how the evidence either supports or refutes our understanding of the evolution of Homo erectus. Factors such as predation vs scavenging, the use of fire, the ability for human speech, and paleo-environmental adaptations are considered in detailed but still lively prose. Things do become a bit more dense when it comes to the presentation of their Clinal-replacement theory and it is best to already be familiar with the two main competing theories of human evolution, speciation, and gene flow.
My only disappointing moment was in reading the final pages where the authors suggest that the high degree of intra-species violence they attribute to H. erectus due to its thickened cranial vault (plausible) still echoes in us, their descendants: "Homo sapiens...has the cultural choice of applying (its newly evolved), beneficent emotions to the whole species, or of maintaining the primitive status quo of Homo erectus, an unreasoning, noninclusive, and xenophobic collective state of mind formerly termed "savagery" and "barbarism" or alternatively, "patriotism", "nationalism", or "tribalism." ...What utter ivory-tower liberal pap!
Overall a book very much worth recommending especially to any anthropology major interested in the subject.
Succeeding chapters detail the findings at Dragon Bone Hill and how the evidence either supports or refutes our understanding of the evolution of Homo erectus. Factors such as predation vs scavenging, the use of fire, the ability for human speech, and paleo-environmental adaptations are considered in detailed but still lively prose. Things do become a bit more dense when it comes to the presentation of their Clinal-replacement theory and it is best to already be familiar with the two main competing theories of human evolution, speciation, and gene flow.
My only disappointing moment was in reading the final pages where the authors suggest that the high degree of intra-species violence they attribute to H. erectus due to its thickened cranial vault (plausible) still echoes in us, their descendants: "Homo sapiens...has the cultural choice of applying (its newly evolved), beneficent emotions to the whole species, or of maintaining the primitive status quo of Homo erectus, an unreasoning, noninclusive, and xenophobic collective state of mind formerly termed "savagery" and "barbarism" or alternatively, "patriotism", "nationalism", or "tribalism." ...What utter ivory-tower liberal pap!
Overall a book very much worth recommending especially to any anthropology major interested in the subject.
January 31, 2016
This was OK, but just OK. The "Ice Age aga of Homo erectus" was more like a Jazz Age saga of lost and stolen skullbones. A lot of time is spent explaining scientific terminology and principles, which is fine as far as it goes, but the authors never really get down to what they promise in the title -- information on the daily life of a wildly-successful early hominid. Their explanation for the reasons behind the strikingly different skull conformation of this species is, well, questionable. How can they ever back up a hypothesis like this without the evidence available? And even I, a silly social worker, know that they are reasoning backward. You don't evolve a feature because it's going to help future generations. It just doesn't work that way.
January 7, 2014
Good read, but a little gossipy in the beginning. Also, the Kindle edition was shoddily put together.
As to the subject: Homo Erectus and Dragon Bone Hill outside of Beijing...this was handled quite well.
However, it was an exceptionally dry read.
You've been warned.
As to the subject: Homo Erectus and Dragon Bone Hill outside of Beijing...this was handled quite well.
However, it was an exceptionally dry read.
You've been warned.
February 14, 2012
Excellent insight into what life was like for Homo erectus in China.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews