On a sunny morning last month, the normally tranquil Paleoanthropological Research Center at Dragon Bone Hill in the outskirts of Beijing was abuzz with journalists. They were gathered outdoors before a festive red and gold banner that announced the purpose of the gathering: the official establishment of the Working Committee to Search for the Lost Skullcaps of Peking Man.
Beneath the banner were poster-size photos of six skullcaps of the 500,000- year-old human ancestor known as Sinanthropus pekinensis, or Peking Man, now called Homo erectus pekinensis. The bones were discovered at Dragon Bone Hill in the Fangshan District in the 1920s and 1930s but were inexplicably lost in 1941 while being transported to the United States for safekeeping during the Japanese occupation of China.
Not a great deal of detail on the bones themselves but it's still one of the most fascinating stories of anthropology.