Zhou was born in Shanghai, China, and graduated from Chongqing University in Sichuan, in 1943.
He became an associate professor at Shandong University, in 1952 and joined the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, where he remained until his death, in 1996.
He was the Chinese leader of the "Sino-Soviet (Paleontological) Expedition" to northwestern China in 1959–1960.
He became an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1980 and in 1993 was awarded the SVP's Romer-Simpson Medal for "sustained and outstanding scholarly excellence and service to the discipline of vertebrate paleontology".
He underwent repeated struggle sessions and made several suicide attempts.