Professor Xinzhi WU (Chinese: 吴新智, 1928-2021) , member of Chinese Academy of Science, and honorary president of Chinese Society for Anatomical Sciences, was born in Hefei City, Anhui Province in June of 1928. He graduated from Shanghai Medical College in 1953. From 1952 to 1953, he was in an advanced training program for teachers of human anatomy sponsored by the Ministry of Health of Chinese Central Government. He finished post-graduate study in paleoanthropology in Chinese Academy of Science in 1961. From then, he has been working at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, as assistant research professor, associate research professor, senior professor, distinguished professor and deputy director tandemly. Professor Wu also served as deputy chief-editor and chief-editor of Acta Anthropologica Sinica for numerous years. He was deputy president of Chinese Society for Anatomical Sciences, and director of the Vocational Committee for Anthropology of this society. He has published more than 100 papers and monographs, most of which are devoted to paleoanthropology, a few to anthropometry of minorities and forensic anthropology as well as primatology such as . In 1984, Professor Wu, with M. H. Wolpoff and A. G. Thorne, put forward a hypothesis, Multiregional Evolution, to explain the origin of modern humans. In 1998, he proposed a new hypothesis, Continuity with Hybridization, for characterizing human evolution in China. He has joined or conducted fieldwork at the Choukoutien archaeological site, and major archaeological sites in Guangxi, Yunnan, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Henan and Hubei provinces. He has played an important role in the finds and studies of Homo sapiens erectus from Yunxi County of Hubei Province, Homo sapiens erectus and Homo sapiens fossils from Xichuan County of Henan Province, and Homo sapiens fossils from Dingcun, Xiangfen County of Shanxi Province. Professor Wu has presided over training programs of teaching anthropometry for the members of the Chinese Society for anatomical Sciences for three times. He was awarded one of the best graduate advisors of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1990. He won the first prize of the CAS Awards of Natural Science in 1991, the second and third prizes of the Guomoruo Award on History Studies respectively in 1999 and 2007, and the second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award in 2005.