Peking Man Site, Zhoukoudian, China

PEKING MAN SITE, ZHOUKOUDIAN (China)

In 1921 Swedish geologist Johan Gunnar Andersson discovered a cave complex about 25 miles SW of Beijing that yielded "Peking Man," a subspecies of Homo erectus. When exactly "he" lived in the area is unclear: sometime between 780,000 and 230,000 years ago. Virtually all specimens (found before 1941) were lost when a shipment was attacked by Japanese warships.

---

Navigation:

• View this post on Facebook or Instagram
• Go to the World Heritage Index

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

The Chengjiang Fossil Site, China

THE CHENGJIANG FOSSIL SITE (China)

This area in Southwestern China has sedimentary deposits containing soft-tissue fossils from a very wide variety of invertebrate and vertebrate organisms from perhaps 530 million years ago. First discovered by a couple of French paleontologists in 1912, they're threatened by the economic need to exploit nearby phosphates in this underdeveloped area.

---

Navigation:

• View this post on Facebook or Instagram
• Go to the World Heritage Index

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

Dinosaur Provincial Park

DINOSAUR PROVINCIAL PARK (near Calgary, Alberta, Canada)

East of Calgary, Alberta, Canada in the Red Deer River valley, the Park has badlands and an abundance of dinosaur fossils--in fact, one of the richest deposits in the world. Fifty-eight dinosaur species and over 500 specimens of plants and fish, birds, reptiles, and other animals have been found here; they are exhibited in museums around the globe.

• View on Facebook or Instagram

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

Cueva de las Manos

CUEVA DE LOS MANOS (Río Pinturas, Santa Cruz, Argentina)

Spanish for "Cave of the Hands," located in a complex of rock art sites in the province of Santa Cruz Argentina, and named for the hundreds of hands stenciled on the rock walls. Dated to 7,300 BCE-700 CE, when several waves of people occupied the cave. Considered by some scholars to be the best physical evidence of South American early hunter-gatherer groups.

• View on Facebook or Instagram

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

The Great Rift Valley

THE GREAT RIFT VALLEY (Lebanon to Mozambique)

The Great Rift Valley is a 4,300-mile-long series of trenches that runs from Lebanon (in Asia) to Mozambique (in Africa). Tanzania's 30-mile-long Olduvai Gorge leading into the Rift is the site of some of the world's most important "early man" finds, associated with the team of Mary and Louis Leakey (prominent in the "National Geographic" when I was a kid).

• View on Facebook or Instagram

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)

Whale Valley

WHALE VALLEY (Wadi Al-Hitan, Egypt)

The dramatic landscape of Wadi Al-Hitan in Egypt's Western Desert is known as "Whale Valley" for its fossil evidence of the evolution of whales from land-based to ocean-going mammals. The many high-quality fossils allow paleontologists to observe transitional fossils of archaeocetes (the now-extinct "ancient whales") in the process of losing their hind legs.

• View on Facebook or Instagram

(Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons; CTTO)