At the end of the nineteenth century in China, amateur fossil huntersknew that a ready supply of fossils could be found in backstreetChinese apothecaries. They were sold as 'dragon bones', to be grounddown and made into powerful medicines. When the sources of thesefossils were tracked down they revealed sites rich with the remains ofhorses, rhinoceroses, elephants ... and the ancestors of mankind. Setagainst a background of squabbling Chinese warlords and the Japaneseoccupation.