• DOI:10.1086/203303
• Corpus ID: 147164100

Taphonomy at a Distance: Zhoukoudian, "The Cave Home of Beijing Man"? [and Comments and Reply]

@article{Binford1985TaphonomyAA,
  title={Taphonomy at a Distance: Zhoukoudian, "The Cave Home of Beijing Man"? [and Comments and Reply]},
  author={Lewis Roberts Binford and Chuan Kun Ho and Jean S. Aigner and Marie-Henriette Alimen and Luis Alberto Borrero and Tang Chung and Paul Goldberg and Fumiko Ikawa-Smith and Jos{\'e} Luis Lanata and Lu Zune and Kubet Luchterhand and R. Lee Lyman and Guillermo Luis Mengoni Go{\~n}alons and Gai Pei and Lawrence Guy Straus and Hugo Yacobaccio and Seonbok Yi},
  journal={Current Anthropology},
  year={1985},
  volume={26},
  pages={413 - 442}
}

• L. Binford, C. Ho, +14 authors S. Yi
• Published 15 January 1985
• Geography
• Current Anthropology

Zhoukoudian is often cited as yielding some of the earliest evidence for the use of fire and as documenting "man the hunter" living in caves during the Middle Pleistocene. In addition, it is commonly believed that this important Chinese site documents cannibalism on the part of Middle Pleistocene hominids. We examine the data from Zhoukoudian with several questions in mind: (1) What are the agents responsible for the bone accumulations inside the cave? (2) What materials within the cave reflect early hominid behavior? (3) What was the nature of that behavior? Our conclusions are at variance with traditional interpretations.