Johan Gunnar Andersson
Of the four species placed within the genus Sinanthropus, the first to be found were remnants of the Peking man (Sinanthropus pekinensis). The first fossil was retrieved by Otto Zdansky (1894-1988) near the village of Chou K'ou-tien (China) after the Swedish Geologist and Archaeologist Johan Gunnar Andersson (1874-1960) and his colleagues instigated the excavations at the beginning of the 1920's. Many more finds would follow. The Canadian Davidson Black (1884-1934) was the first to identify the fossils as a new hominid genus, Sinanthropus. A substantial part of the originally discovered remains of the Peking man was lost during WWII, when the fossils were transferred to the United States.