We all grow up with a vague memory of a “Peking Man” entry in our home or school encyclopaedias. Despite that, in 4 previous visits to Beijing, we had not, given all the other attractions in and around that city, been bothered to make the c 50kms journey out to the site of its finding. In autumn 2005 we put that right – I can’t say we were expecting a lot and to be truthful we didn’t get it either and could not recommend giving it a higher priority than we have done!

The site is situated where the plains give way to limestone hills and a number of caves there have been excavated since 1921. It came as a surprise to discover that most of them had in fact been gradually filled in by natural processes (and presumably also the results of use by humans?) over the millennia and the main “cave” (photo) provides a nice example of the various strata which have been excavated to unearth the remains of “human” habitation going back around 500,000 years (some of the discoveries are as recent as 18000 years old showing a long period of human use). The museum at the site contains some casts of the remains and another surprise was to discover that most of the most important early discoveries were lost in the chaos following WWII – possibly in transit to the USA and that casts are all we now have. Some enormous “Bronzes” of the skull adorn the site to make up for the lack of more tangible authentic remains!

If you do decide to visit the place you will need around 4 hours to/from Beijing including an hour to walk the trail to various caves and visit the museum. We took a taxi to/from our hotel for the afternoon but it is possible to do it by bus. These start at the Tianquiao Bus Station west of Tiantan and run along Guang’an Lu just south of Beijing West Railway station. Bus No 917 seemed to run every few minutes but only goes as far as the town of Fangshan a few kms short of Zhoukoudan from where another bus or taxi should be easy. It is likely however that the less frequent bus No 971 goes all the way. Good luck!