The earliest known fossil evidence of Homo erectus in China was found at Choukoutien (Zhoukoudian), in 1923 and 1927, when Davidson Black (1884–1934) described and placed the fossils into the new taxon, Sinanthropus pekinensis. Between 1929 and 1934, Black described and published on further fossil material found at Choukoutien, including a skull found in 1929. He made casts of these fossils and filmed his preparation of the casting of the Sinanthropus skull. This skull was lost, along with the other Sinanthropus fossils, during World War II. The casts he made of the fossils found at Choukoutien from 1929 to 1934 remain priceless to science.