Gigantopithecus blacki

Creationists often claim that the Peking Man fossils were the remains of giant apes or monkeys. As fate would have it, there was a giant ape which lived in China at the same time as Homo erectus. Gigantopithecus blacki, named after Davidson Black, is known only from four lower jaws and about a thousand teeth. Judging from their enormous size, Gigantopithecus was the largest primate that ever lived, with males standing at 10 ft tall, and weighing up to 1200 lbs (Ciochon et al., 1990). (Extrapolating from such scanty remains is obviously risky; other people have made smaller estimates.)

Although it is a giant ape, Gigantopithecus is of no comfort to creationists trying to show the Peking Man was an ape. Its jaw is far too large to be mistaken for that of Peking Man.

The Gigantopithecus home page, by Eric Pettifor

The Ape that was, by Russell Ciochon

For more information, read "Other Origins: the Search for the Giant Ape in Human Prehistory", by Russell Ciochon, John Olsen and Jamie James (1990).

Return to Creationist arguments about Peking Man

This page is part of the Fossil Hominids FAQ at the talk.origins Archive.