A local laborer found a nearly complete skull at the riverbank of Songhua River in 1933 when he was building the in Harbin (at the time part of Manchukuo) for the Japanese-aligned Manchukuo National Railway. Recognizing its importance, likely as a result of public interest in anthropology recently generated by the Peking Man in 1929, he hid it from the Manchukuo authorities in an abandoned well. After the Soviet defeat of Manchukuo, he concealed his former employment from the Nationalist and later the Communist authorities.