Difference between revisions of "Java Man" - New World Encyclopedia
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| − | '''Java Man''' was one of the first specimens of ''[[Homo erectus]]'' to be discovered. It was originally given the scientific name '''''Pithecanthropus erectus''''' by its discoverer [[Eugène Dubois]], who found the remains at the site of [[Trinil]] in 1891. The word "pithecanthropos" was derived from Greek roots and means ''ape man''. | + | '''Java Man''' was one of the first specimens of ''[[Homo erectus]]'' to be discovered, having been located first in 1891 in Java (Indonesia). It was originally given the scientific name '''''Pithecanthropus erectus''''' ("ape-man who walked upright") by its discoverer [[Eugène Dubois]], who found the remains with the aid of laborers. When other [[fossil]]s purported to be the same specimen were found in [[China]] and [[Africa]], Java Man was redesignated as ''Homo erectus''. |
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| + | ''Homo erectus'' ("upright man") is an [[extinction|extinct]] species of the genus ''Homo'', that lived from about 1.8 million years ago (mya) to 50-70,000 years ago. It is considered to be the first hominid to spread out of Africa. However, often the early phase in Africa, from 1.8 to 1.25 (or 1.6) mya, is considered to be a separate species, ''[[Homo ergaster]]'', or it is seen as a subspecies of ''erectus'', ''Homo erectus ergaster'' (Mayr 2001). The later populations found in Asia, Europe, and Africa are considered ''Home erectus''. | ||
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| + | The initial 1891 discovery has been dated to about 400,000 years ago (Kreger 2005). Originally, ''H. erectus'' was believed to have disappeared roughly 400,000 years ago, but some deposits in Java thought to contain ''H. erectus'' [[fossil]]s were dated at only 50,000 years ago, which would mean that at least one population would have been a contemporary of modern [[human]]s (Smithsonian 2007a). | ||
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| + | ==Fossil discoveries== | ||
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| + | at the site of [[Trinil]] in 1891. The word "pithecanthropos" was derived from Greek roots and means ''ape man''. | ||
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| + | Note:Dutch anatomist [[Eugene Dubois]] (1890s) first described his finding as ''Pithecanthropus erectus'', "ape-man who walked upright," based on a calotte (skullcap) and a modern-looking femur found from the bank of the Solo River at Trinil, in central Java. | ||
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| + | Note:Early in the century, due to the discoveries on Java and at Zhoukoudian, it was believed that modern humans first evolved in Asia. This contradicted [[Charles Darwin]]'s idea of African human origin. However, during the 1950s and 1970s, the numerous fossil finds from East Africa ([[Kenya]]) yielded evidence that the oldest hominins (members of the tribe Hominini: extinct and extant [[chimpanzee]]s and humans) originated there. It is now believed that ''H. erectus'' is a descendant of earlier hominins such as ''[[Australopithecus]]'' and early ''Homo'' species (e.g., ''[[H. habilis]]''). ''H. erectus'' appears to originally have migrated from Africa during the Early [[Pleistocene]] around 2.0 million years ago, dispersing throughout most of the [[Old World]]. | ||
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| + | ''H. erectus'' remains an important hominin since it is believed to be the first to leave Africa. In addition ''H. erectus'' was the first human ancestor to walk truly upright, which was made possible by the development of locking knees and a different location of the [[foramen magnum]] (the hole in the skull where the spine enters). | ||
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| + | NOte:"The species was named by Eugène Dubois (it was originally designated as Pithecanthropus erectus) in 1894, after his 1891 find from Trinil, Java, in Indonesia (Trinil 2). Dubois was inspired by A. Wallace's conviction that the origins of modern humans might lie in Southeast Asia. Dubois enlisted as an army surgeon in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, and searched for fossils in Sumatra. He had little success in Sumatra, but found unearthed a thick mineralized hominid skull near the bank of the Solo River in Java. Dubois made his find public a few years later, and was met by derision from the dominant British paleontological hierarchy. Dubois was disillusioned, and this important find actually spent some time in a box underneath the floorboards of Dubois' home."* Kreger, C. D. 2005. The Javanese specimens are a source of great controversy. No specimen from Indonesia has been found in a well-dated locale. Often, they have been found by locals and bought by researchers or interested laypersons. The older dates (ranging near 1.7 myr) are very controversial, and very tenuous. For example, the Modjokerto child was discovered by a hired workman in 1936, and the specimen was "dated" decades later by looking at the material that adhered to the cranium, and matching that matrix to a strata based on the information of where the specimen was found, finding a strata that matched the material taken from the specimen, then dating the samples of stratum that were assumed to be where the specimen originally came from. Specimens like Sangiran 17 and Trinil 2 have been dated to approximately 800 kyr and 400 kyr, respectively. | ||
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| + | The best preserved hominid cranium from Java is Sangiran 17. This specimen was discovered by a farmer at Sangiran, Java, Indonesia, in 1969. Sangiran 17 has been an important specimen for those who accept the multiregional hypothesis that has erectus moving into Asia early, and evolving into Homo sapiens with gene flow being maintained between various African, Asian, and European populations. | ||
| + | [http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homoerectus.htm ''Homo erectus'': Introduction]. ''Archaeology.info''. Retrieved March 4, 2007. | ||
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| + | The first fossils of ''Homo erectus'' were discovered by Dutch physician [[Eugene Dubois]] in | ||
| + | 1891 on the [[Indonesia]]n island of Java. He originally gave the material the name ''Pithecanthropus erectus'' based on its morphology that he considered to be intermediate between that of humans and apes. | ||
Dubois' find was not a complete specimen, but consisted merely of a skullcap, a femur, and three teeth. It was also not clear whether those bones came from the same species. A 342-page report written shortly after the find throws much doubt upon the validity of this particular specimen. Despite this, the Java Man is still found in many textbooks today. A second Java Man was later discovered in the village of Sangiran, Central [[Java (island)|Java]], 18km to the north of [[Surakarta|Solo]]. His remains, a skullcap of similar size to that found by Dubois, was discovered by Berlin-born paleontologist [[Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald|GHR von Koenigswald]] in 1936, as a direct result of excavations by Dubois in 1891. | Dubois' find was not a complete specimen, but consisted merely of a skullcap, a femur, and three teeth. It was also not clear whether those bones came from the same species. A 342-page report written shortly after the find throws much doubt upon the validity of this particular specimen. Despite this, the Java Man is still found in many textbooks today. A second Java Man was later discovered in the village of Sangiran, Central [[Java (island)|Java]], 18km to the north of [[Surakarta|Solo]]. His remains, a skullcap of similar size to that found by Dubois, was discovered by Berlin-born paleontologist [[Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald|GHR von Koenigswald]] in 1936, as a direct result of excavations by Dubois in 1891. | ||
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Even as recently as 1994, <i>Time</i> Magazine stated that '<i>[Java Man] is a legimate evolutionary ancestor</i>'<ref>Michael D. Lemonick, "How Man Began" - Time Magazine, march 14th, 1994 </ref> which is in disagreement with several anthropologists. | Even as recently as 1994, <i>Time</i> Magazine stated that '<i>[Java Man] is a legimate evolutionary ancestor</i>'<ref>Michael D. Lemonick, "How Man Began" - Time Magazine, march 14th, 1994 </ref> which is in disagreement with several anthropologists. | ||
| − | == | + | ==References== |
| + | * Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. 2007a. [http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/erec.html ''Homo erectus'']. ''Smithsonian Institution''. Retrieved March 4, 2007. | ||
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==See also== | ==See also== | ||
*[[Peking Man]] | *[[Peking Man]] | ||
Revision as of 19:39, 11 March 2007
Java Man was one of the first specimens of Homo erectus to be discovered, having been located first in 1891 in Java (Indonesia). It was originally given the scientific name Pithecanthropus erectus ("ape-man who walked upright") by its discoverer Eugène Dubois, who found the remains with the aid of laborers. When other fossils purported to be the same specimen were found in China and Africa, Java Man was redesignated as Homo erectus.
Homo erectus ("upright man") is an extinct species of the genus Homo, that lived from about 1.8 million years ago (mya) to 50-70,000 years ago. It is considered to be the first hominid to spread out of Africa. However, often the early phase in Africa, from 1.8 to 1.25 (or 1.6) mya, is considered to be a separate species, Homo ergaster, or it is seen as a subspecies of erectus, Homo erectus ergaster (Mayr 2001). The later populations found in Asia, Europe, and Africa are considered Home erectus.
The initial 1891 discovery has been dated to about 400,000 years ago (Kreger 2005). Originally, H. erectus was believed to have disappeared roughly 400,000 years ago, but some deposits in Java thought to contain H. erectus fossils were dated at only 50,000 years ago, which would mean that at least one population would have been a contemporary of modern humans (Smithsonian 2007a).
Fossil discoveries
at the site of Trinil in 1891. The word "pithecanthropos" was derived from Greek roots and means ape man.
Note:Dutch anatomist Eugene Dubois (1890s) first described his finding as Pithecanthropus erectus, "ape-man who walked upright," based on a calotte (skullcap) and a modern-looking femur found from the bank of the Solo River at Trinil, in central Java.
Note:Early in the century, due to the discoveries on Java and at Zhoukoudian, it was believed that modern humans first evolved in Asia. This contradicted Charles Darwin's idea of African human origin. However, during the 1950s and 1970s, the numerous fossil finds from East Africa (Kenya) yielded evidence that the oldest hominins (members of the tribe Hominini: extinct and extant chimpanzees and humans) originated there. It is now believed that H. erectus is a descendant of earlier hominins such as Australopithecus and early Homo species (e.g., H. habilis). H. erectus appears to originally have migrated from Africa during the Early Pleistocene around 2.0 million years ago, dispersing throughout most of the Old World.
H. erectus remains an important hominin since it is believed to be the first to leave Africa. In addition H. erectus was the first human ancestor to walk truly upright, which was made possible by the development of locking knees and a different location of the foramen magnum (the hole in the skull where the spine enters).
NOte:"The species was named by Eugène Dubois (it was originally designated as Pithecanthropus erectus) in 1894, after his 1891 find from Trinil, Java, in Indonesia (Trinil 2). Dubois was inspired by A. Wallace's conviction that the origins of modern humans might lie in Southeast Asia. Dubois enlisted as an army surgeon in the Royal Dutch East Indies Army, and searched for fossils in Sumatra. He had little success in Sumatra, but found unearthed a thick mineralized hominid skull near the bank of the Solo River in Java. Dubois made his find public a few years later, and was met by derision from the dominant British paleontological hierarchy. Dubois was disillusioned, and this important find actually spent some time in a box underneath the floorboards of Dubois' home."* Kreger, C. D. 2005. The Javanese specimens are a source of great controversy. No specimen from Indonesia has been found in a well-dated locale. Often, they have been found by locals and bought by researchers or interested laypersons. The older dates (ranging near 1.7 myr) are very controversial, and very tenuous. For example, the Modjokerto child was discovered by a hired workman in 1936, and the specimen was "dated" decades later by looking at the material that adhered to the cranium, and matching that matrix to a strata based on the information of where the specimen was found, finding a strata that matched the material taken from the specimen, then dating the samples of stratum that were assumed to be where the specimen originally came from. Specimens like Sangiran 17 and Trinil 2 have been dated to approximately 800 kyr and 400 kyr, respectively.
The best preserved hominid cranium from Java is Sangiran 17. This specimen was discovered by a farmer at Sangiran, Java, Indonesia, in 1969. Sangiran 17 has been an important specimen for those who accept the multiregional hypothesis that has erectus moving into Asia early, and evolving into Homo sapiens with gene flow being maintained between various African, Asian, and European populations. Homo erectus: Introduction. Archaeology.info. Retrieved March 4, 2007.
The first fossils of Homo erectus were discovered by Dutch physician Eugene Dubois in
1891 on the Indonesian island of Java. He originally gave the material the name Pithecanthropus erectus based on its morphology that he considered to be intermediate between that of humans and apes.
Dubois' find was not a complete specimen, but consisted merely of a skullcap, a femur, and three teeth. It was also not clear whether those bones came from the same species. A 342-page report written shortly after the find throws much doubt upon the validity of this particular specimen. Despite this, the Java Man is still found in many textbooks today. A second Java Man was later discovered in the village of Sangiran, Central Java, 18km to the north of Solo. His remains, a skullcap of similar size to that found by Dubois, was discovered by Berlin-born paleontologist GHR von Koenigswald in 1936, as a direct result of excavations by Dubois in 1891.
Until older human remains were discovered in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, Dubois' and Koenigswald's discoveries were the oldest hominid remains ever found, and were the first cited as support for Charles Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's theory of evolution. Many scientists of the day even suggested that Dubois' Java Man might have been the so-called "missing link", the creature that is supposed to provide the evolutionary connection between the apes and modern man. Due to 19th-century skepticism, this theory was never credited to Dubois. In recent years, several anthropologists have argued that Java Man is not the "missing link", but is in fact, a true member of the Human family. [1]
Sir Arthur Keith, an anatomist of from Cambridge University, later claimed that the skull cap itself, '[is] distinctly human and reflected a brain capacity well within the range of humans living today',[2], thus refuting Eugene Dubois's original claim that '[Java man] represents a stage in the devolopment of modern man from a smaller-brained ancestor'.[3]
Even as recently as 1994, Time Magazine stated that '[Java Man] is a legimate evolutionary ancestor'[4] which is in disagreement with several anthropologists.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. 2007a. Homo erectus. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved March 4, 2007.
See also
Sahelanthropus tchadensis • Orrorin tugenensis • Ardipithecus
Australopithecus: A. anamensis • A. afarensis • A. bahrelghazali • A. africanus • A. garhi
Paranthropus: P. aethiopicus • P. boisei • P. robustus
Kenyanthropus platyops
Homo: H. habilis • H. rudolfensis • H. georgicus • H. ergaster • H. erectus (H. e. lantianensis • H. e. palaeojavanicus • H. e. pekinensis • H. e. soloensis) • H. cepranensis • H. antecessor • H. heidelbergensis • H. neanderthalensis • H. rhodesiensis • H. floresiensis • Homo sapiens (H. s. idaltu • H. s. sapiens)
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