Chenjiawo is the most complete of the three Chinese Homo erectus mandibles, the others being the 1959 Zhoukoudian mandible and the Hexian body fragment. The Chenjiawo mandible was found in 1963, near Yehu, ten kilometres northwest of Lantian city in Shaanxi Province. The mandible was described by Woo (1964a; 1964b) and is frequently linked with the Gongwangling cranium, also found in Lantian County, as Lantian Man. The two fossils, however, are not associated and the mandible is probably from a female H. erectus while the cranium appears to be male. Chenjiawo is also discussed in detail in Wu and Poirier (1995), in their standard detailed and comprehensive manner. Palaeomagnetic dating of the site suggests that the hominid remains date to around 650,000, or 500,000, years (Wu et al. 1989; An et al. 1990).
The Chenjiawo mandible has damage to both rami but the mandibular body and most of the teeth are preserved. The left canine, first and second premolar and first molar were lost postmortem. Moderately heavy tooth wear is a characteristic of the remaining teeth suggesting a middle aged adult (30-35 years). Both third molars are congenitally absent. The mandibular body is nether particularly high or strongly reinforced. The symphysial region is receding with a small mental trigone. On the posterior surface of the symphysis there is a real transverse torus, with a slight inferior torus below it. There is no mandibular torus, the mylohyoid line is distinct and the subalveolar fossae reasonably well developed. A slight eversion of the gonial region is suggested by what is preserved of the right ramus. The lateral prominence is poorly developed and the mandibular body not particularly thickened.
Access to Chenjiawo
Chenjiawo is housed in the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Beijing, China. Research workers interested in access to Chenjiawo should write to Professor Wu Xinzhi, Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, Academia Sinica, PO Box 164, Beijing, Peoples Republic of China.
References
An Z, Gao W, Zhu Y, Kan X, Wang J, Sun J, and Wei M (1990)
Magnetostratigraphic dates of Lantian Homo erectus. Acta Anthropologica
Sinica 9:1-7.
Woo J (1964a) Mandible of Sinanthropus lantianensis. Current Anthropology 5:98-102.
Woo J (1964b) Mandible of the Sinanthropus-type discovered at Lantian, Shensi. Vertebrata PalAsiatica 1:1-12.
Wu R, Wu X, and Zhang S, eds. (1989) Early humankind in China. Beijing: Science Press.
Wu X, and Poirier FE (1995) Human evolution in China. Oxford:
Oxford University Press.