Cenozoic Research Laboratory

The Cenozoic Research Laboratory (Chinese: 新生代地质与环境研究室) of the Geological Survey of China was established within the Peking Union Medical College in 1928 by Canadian paleoanthropologist Davidson Black and Chinese geologists Ding Wenjing and Weng Wenhao for the research and appraisal of Peking Man fossils unearthed at Zhoukoudian.

Davidson Black founded the laboratory with an $80,000 grant from the Rockefeller Foundation and stayed on as honorary director until he died in his office, surrounded by his finds, in 1934. He was replaced by German Jewish anthropologist Franz Weidenreich.

Excavations at Zhoukoudian ceased in 1937 with the Japanese occupation and the fossils from the site were locked in the laboratory safe under the assumption that they would be secure at the American-run hospital.

However, in the summer of 1941, fearing imminent war between America and Japan, Weidenreich ordered copies of the bones to be made. When this task had been completed secretary Hu Chengzi packed up the fossils so they could be shipped to the U.S. for safekeeping until the end of the war. They were never seen again.

Now only Weidenreich’s timely copies and the research notes of the staff remain to demonstrate the pioneering work of this laboratory that is considered to be the precursor of the modern Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Science.

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