article_snippet: Fossils, including a number of teeth, were found in caves in Zhoukoudian near Beijing in the 1920s, but most of the pieces were lost in the chaos of World War Two.
article_snippet: The very first samples of the prehistoric ancestor were found by Otto Zdansky from Uppsala University in the 1920s and are on show alongside a third tooth discovered in the 1950s, at the museum.
article_snippet: Fossils, including a number of teeth, were found in caves in Zhoukoudian (marked on the map with an 'A') near Beijing in the 1920s, but most of the pieces were lost in the chaos of World War Two .
article_snippet: Sadly, the unique collection disappeared during the chaos of the World War Two and has never been found since, but over the last decades, several fossils of Homo erectus have been found in other parts of the world.
article_snippet: Sadly, the vast majority of the finds disappeared during the chaos of the World War Two the World War Two and have never been found since, making the discovery of the tooth especially important .
article_snippet: Fossils were placed in the Cenozoic Research Laboratory of the Peking Union Medical College for safe-keeping, before being packed up for the US in 1941.
highlights_snippet: Tooth was found in a box at the Museum of Evolution at Uppsala University .
  
highlights_snippet: Fossil was found in the 1920s but has been lost for decades .
  
highlights_snippet: Fossil belonged to an ancient human ancestor  some 500,000 years ago .
  