Peking Man
"H. erectus" seems to have typically favoured open environments. It is debated if Peking Man occupied the region during colder glacial periods or only took residence during warmer interglacials, tied to the uncertain chronology of the Zhoukoudian, as well as arguments regarding fire usage, clothing technology, and hunting ability. Given the abundance of deer remains, it was quite early on assumed Peking Man was a prolific deer hunter, but since the establishment of non-human carnivores as a major depositional agent, the dependence on hunting has become a controversial topic. Indeed, most of the Peking Man fossils were at least fed upon by likely hyenas. Nonetheless, some of the animal fossils seem to have been modified by humans. In 1986, Binford and colleagues reported a few horse fossils with cutmarks left by stone tools, and two upper premolars from Layer 4 appearing to him to have been burned while still fresh, which he ascribed to horse-head roasting (but he believed Peking Man was simply scavenging from hyenas because all tool cuts he analysed were always overlapping hyena gnaw marks instead of vice versa.) The Zhoukoudian also preserves the remains of edible plants, nuts, and seeds which Peking Man may have been eating: Chinese hackberry, walnut, hazelnut, pine, elm, and rambler rose.