pithecantropus erectus

Manusia Jawa Dari Wikipedia Indonesia, ensiklopedia bebas berbahasa Indonesia.

Manusia Jawa adalah salah satu jenis Homo erectus yang pertama kali ditemukan. Awalnya, manusia ini diberi nama ilmiah Pithecanthropus erectus oleh Eugène Dubois, orang yang berhasil menemukan fosilnya di Trinil pada tahun 1891. Nama Pithecanthropus erectus sendiri berasal dari akar bahasa Yunani dan latin dan memiliki arti manusia-kera yang dapat berdiri.

[sunting] Sejarah Ketika itu, Eugène Dubois tidak berhasil mengumpulkan fosil Pithecanthropus secara utuh melainkan hanya tempurung tengkorak, tulang paha atas dan tiga giginya saja. Dan sampai saat ini, belum ditemukan bukti yang jelas bahwa ketiga tulang tersebut berasal dari spesies yang sama.[1] Sebuah laporan berisi 342 halaman ditulis pada waktu itu tentang keraguan validitas penemuan tersebut. Meskipun demikian manusia Jawa masih dapat ditemukan di buku-buku pelajaran saat ini. Fosil yang lebih lengkap kemudian ditemukan di desa Sangiran, Jawa Tengah, sekitar 18km ke Utara dari kota Solo. Fosil berupa tempurung tengkorak manusia ini ditemukan oleh Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald, seorang ahli paleoantropologi dari Berlin, pada tahun 1936. Selain fosil, banyak pula penemuan-penemuan lain di situs sangiran ini[2].

Sampai temuan manusia yang lebih tua lainnya ditemukan di Great Rift Valley, Kenya, temuan Dubois dan von Koenigswald merupakan manusia tertua yang diketahui. Temuan ini juga dijadikan rujukan untuk mendukung teori evolusi Charles Darwin dan Alfred Russel Wallace. Banyak ilmuwan pada saat itu yang juga mengajukan teori bahwa Manusia Jawa mungkin merupakan mata rantai yang hilang antara manusia kera dengan manusia modern saat ini. Saat ini, antropolog bersepakat bahwa leluhur manusia saat ini adalah Homo erectus yang hidup di Afrika (dikenal pula dengan nama Homo ergaster).

[sunting] Lain-lain Seorang kartunis Brasil Maurício de Sousa, terinspirasi oleh nama ilmiah manusia Jawa, menciptakan karakter Pitheco, atau lengkapnya Pithecanthropus erectus da Silva.[1]

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Homo erectus (Latin: "manusia yang dapat berdiri") adalah seekor spesies yang telah punah dari genus Homo. Anatomis Belanda Eugene Dubois (1980-an) pertama kali menggambarkannya sebagai Pithecanthropus erectus berdasarkan fosil tempurung kepala dan tulang paha yang ditemukannya di Trinil, Jawa Tengah. Sepanjang abad ke-20, antropolog berdebat tentang peranan H. erectus dalam rantai evolusi manusia. Pada awal abad itu, setelah ditemukannya fosil di Jawa dan Zhoukoudian, para ilmuwan mempercayai bahwa manusia modern berevolusi di Asia. Hal ini bertentangan dengan teori Charles Darwin yang mengatakan bahwa manusia modern berasal Afrika. Namun, pada tahun 1950-an dan 1970-an, beberapa fosil yang ditemukan di Kenya, Afrika Timur, ternyata menunjukkan bahwa hominins memang berasal dari benua Afrika. Sampai saat ini para ilmuwan mempercayai bahwa H. erectus adalah keturunan dari hominins era awal seperti Australopithecus dan keturunan spesies Homo awal seperti Homo habilis.

H. erectus dipercaya berasal dari Afrika dan bermigrasi selama masa Pleistocene awal sekitar 2,0 juta tahun yang lalu, dan terus menyebar ke seluruh Dunia Lama hingga mencapai Asia Tenggara.

Tulang-tulang yang diperkirakan berumur 1,8 dan 1,0 juta tahun telah ditemukan di Afrika (Danau Turkana dan Olduvai Gorge), Eropa (Georgia), Indonesia (Sangiran dan Trinil), dan China (Shaanxi). H. erectus menjadi hominin terpenting mengingat bahwa spesies inilah yang pertama kali meninggalkan benua Afrika.

The Java Man skullcap

Trinil 2, "Java Man", "Pithecanthropus I", Homo erectus (was Pithecanthropus erectus) Discovered by Eugene Dubois in 1891 near Trinil in Java. Its age is uncertain, but thought to be about 700,000 years. This find consisted of a flat, very thick skullcap, a few teeth, and a thigh bone found

about 12 meters away (Theunissen, 1989). The brain size is about 940 cc. Trinkaus and Shipman (1992) state that most scientists now believe the femur is that of a modern human, but few of the other references mention this.

Sangiran 2, "Pithecanthropus II", Homo erectus A very similar but more complete braincase was found at Sangiran in Java in 1937 by G.H.R. von Koenigswald. It is even smaller, with a brain size of only 815 cc.

Many creationists consider Java Man to be a large ape, but it is far more humanlike and has a far larger brain size than any ape, and the skull is similar to other Homo erectus skulls. It is also frequently claimed that Eugene Dubois, the discoverer of Java Man, later decided it was only a large gibbon, but this claim is not true.

Related links Creationist arguments about Java Man

Was Java Man a gibbon?

Compare Java Man with the Turkana Boy

Compare Java Man with a chimpanzee and a Neandertal

Search of Java Man

This page is part of the Fossil Hominids FAQ at the talk.origins Archive.

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http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/java.html, 04/28/97

Copyright © Jim Foley || Email me

Creationist Arguments: Java Man Many creationists have claimed that Java Man, discovered by Eugene Dubois in 1893, was "bad science". Gish (1985) says that Dubois found two human skulls at nearby Wadjak at about the same level and had kept them secret; that Dubois later decided Java Man was a giant gibbon; and that the bones do not come from the same individual. Most people would find Gish's meaning of "nearby" surprising: the Wadjak skulls were found 65 miles (104 km) of mountainous countryside away from Java Man. Similarly for "at approximately the same level": the Wadjak skulls were found in cave deposits in the mountains, while Java Man was found in river deposits in a flood plain (Fezer 1993). Nor is it true, as is often claimed, that Dubois kept the existence of the Wadjak skulls secret because knowledge of them would have discredited Java Man. Dubois briefly reported the Wadjak skulls in three separate publications in 1890 and 1892. Despite being corrected on this in a debate in 1982 and in print (Brace 1986), Gish has continued to make this claim, even stating, despite not having apparently read Dubois' reports, that they did not mention the Wadjak skulls (Fezer 1993).

Lubenow does acknowledge the existence of Dubois' papers, but argues that since they were bureaucratic reports not intended for the public or the scientific community, Dubois was still guilty of concealing the existence of the Wadjak skulls. This is also incorrect; the journals in which Dubois published, although obscure, were distributed in Europe and America, and are part of the scientific literature. They are available in major libraries and have often been referred to by later researchers (Brace, 1996:pers.comm.).

Based on his own theories about how brains had evolved and wishful thinking, Dubois did claim that Java Man was "a gigantic genus allied to the gibbons", but this was not, as creationists imply, a retraction of his earlier claims that it was an intermediate between apes and humans. Dubois also pointed out that it was bipedal and that its brain size was "very much too large for an anthropoid ape", and he never stopped believing that he had found an ancestor of modern man (Theunissen 1989; Gould 1993; Lubenow 1992). (The creationist organization Answers in Genesis has now abandoned the claim that Dubois dismissed Java Man as a gibbon, and now lists it in their Arguments we think creationists should NOT use web page.)

Creationists are right about one thing. Most modern scientists agree that the femur is more recent than the skullcap, belonging to a modern human. Some of the teeth found nearby are now thought to be from an orang-utan, rather than Homo erectus.

It is instructive to listen to Gish (1993) expounding on the apelike qualities of the skullcap: "Now we see that the skullcap is very apelike; notice that it has no forehead, it's very flat, very typical of the ape. Notice the massive eyebrow ridges, very typical of the ape".

Despite this, the skullcap definitely does not belong to any ape, and especially not to a gibbon. It is far too large (940 cc, compared to 97 cc for a gibbon), and it is similar to many other Homo erectus fossils that have been found. One of these is Sangiran 17, also found on Java. This skull, which is never mentioned by creationists, is an almost complete cranium and is clearly human, albeit primitive. Others are the Turkana Boy and ER 3733 fossils, both of which creationists recognize as human.

If one is trying to pigeonhole Java Man as either an ape or a human, calling it a human is easily the best choice, but very few creationists seem to have done so until Lubenow in 1992. However he attempts to disqualify Java Man as a primitive human by using faunal evidence to show that it is the same age as the Wadjak skulls. Lubenow gives the following quote from Hooijer (1951): "Tapirus indicus, supposedly extinct in Java since the Middle Pleistocene, proved to be represented in the Dubois collection from the Wadjak site, central Java, which is late ‐ if not post ‐ Pleistocene in age." Lubenow is saying that since this species of tapir was found in both the Trinil [the site where Java Man was found] and Wadjak faunas, these fossils may be of the same age. This conclusion is reinforced by three other quotes from Hooijer, all of which describe difficulties in using faunal methods to date Javan fossils. Lubenow's argument fails for a number of reasons.

Even if faunal methods were completely invalid, it would not constitute evidence that Wadjak Man and Java Man were the same age. The most that could be claimed was that the ages of both were unknown. However Hooijer never said that the faunal methods were useless, or that the Wadjak and Trinil faunas were the same.

By far the simplest resolution of the tapir discrepancy is, as Hooijer stated, that Tapirus indicus survived longer than previously thought on Java (Lubenow does admit this possibility). This is consistent with the rest of the evidence. The Wadjak fauna is modern, and hence Wadjak Man is considered to be less than 50,000 years old, and more probably about 10,000 years old. The Trinil fauna contains many more extinct species, and is hence older.

Basically, Lubenow argues that Wadjak Man and Java Man are the same age because a single species of tapir is in both faunas, ignoring that there are many other species not shared between the faunas, and that the extinct species are exclusively in the Trinil fauna.

Lubenow claims that Dubois concealed the Wadjak fossils because the discrepancy of the tapir would have contradicted his claim that Java Man was far older than Wadjak. This seems implausible because Dubois was one of the earliest collectors in Java, and detailed information on the Javan faunas was not compiled until decades later (Hooijer 1951).

Incidentally, the tapir was probably not singled out for mention by Hooijer because it is an anomaly, as Lubenow seems to suspect. It was probably of interest because this species of tapir is still living in South East Asia, and is not, as Lubenow stated, extinct. (Hooijer only stated that it was extinct in Java, not elsewhere.)

Parker (Morris and Parker 1982) expresses puzzlement that Johanson (1981) considers Java Man to be a valid fossil. It is of course a valid fossil because the skullcap had to belong to something, but Parker merely dismisses it as "bad science". (He seems to be of the opinion that it was an ape, but does not say so explicitly.)

As mentioned above Lubenow, publishing in 1992, was one of the first major creationists to conclude that the Java Man skullcap did not belong to an ape. Bill Mehlert came to similar conclusion in a paper published in a creationist journal in 1994: The finding of ER 3733 and WT 15000 therefore appears to strongly reinforce the validity of Java and Peking Man. The clear similarities shared by all four (where skeletal and cranial material available), render untenable any claims that the two Asian specimens are nothing more than exceptionally large apes. (Mehlert 1994) Following this many of the better‐informed creationists decided that the skullcap which had hitherto belonged to an ape was in fact human, such that Carl Wieland, the CEO of Answers in Genesis was able to write in 1998 (in a review of Richard Milton's book Shattering the myths of Darwinism) that [Milton's] statement that the Java Man remains are now thought to be simply those of an extinct, giant gibbon‐like creature is simply false. He appears to have been misled by the myth (commenced by evolutionists, and perpetuated in both creationist and evolutionist works since) that Eugene Dubois, the discoverer of Java Man, recanted and called his discovery a 'giant gibbon'. Knowledgable creationists do not make this sort of claim anymore. (Wieland 1998) "Knowledgable creationists" may not claim that Java Man is an ape any more, but there still seem to be quite a few non‐knowledgable creationists out there, such as Duane Gish (1995). Old lies die hard, however. An article published in 1991 in Creation, the popular magazine of Weiland's organization Answers in Genesis, suggested that the Java Man skullcap was probably that of an ape. That article is still on the AIG website as of 2005: 'Java man' has been renamed so as to now belong to the category of Homo erectus. However, readers should be aware that though there are indeed reasonable specimens which have been named Homo erectus (of disputed status in this whole question, but that's another matter) there is no reason to believe that 'Java man' necessarily even belonged to this category, nor had any objective existence at all.

The skull-cap may have belonged to a large extinct ape, and the leg bone to an ordinary human.

When Mehlert stated that ER 3733 and WT 15000 had rendered untenable the claim that Java Man skullcap was just a large ape, he was only about 60 years behind the times. Legitimate scientists had come to the same conclusion in the 1930's, when other fossils similar to but more complete than the original Java Man were discovered, showing conclusively that it did not belong to a giant ape. It seems to have taken the discovery of the Turkana Boy fossil WT 15000 in 1985 to make this obvious even to creationists.

Related links Was Java Man a gibbon?

Compare Java Man with Turkana Boy

Did Dubois hide Wadjak Man?

Duane Gish and Wadjak Man

Creationists and the Pithecanthropines, by C. Loring Brace



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_java.html, 08/11/2005


Was Java Man a gibbon? In a word: No. Gibbon skulls have an average cranial capacity of about 100 cc. The Java Man skullcap was about 940 cc, considerably larger than even the largest gorilla skulls, which are over 700 cc. Such rough similarity of shape as exists between gibbons and Java Man is common to many apes and hominids. The Java Man skull closely resembles other Homo erectus skulls, and there is no reason not to place it in that species.

The following photo is a comparison of a gibbon skull, on the left, with a cast of the Java Man skullcap (made with the help of the staff at the American Museum of Natural History).

The next question is:

Did Eugene Dubois claim that Java Man was a gibbon?

Many creationists (and some evolutionists) state that Eugene Dubois decided in the 1930's that the Java Man skullcap was merely that of a large gibbon [1]. Not usually stated, but implied, is that he had abandoned his claims for it as a human ancestor and decided that it had nothing to do with human evolution. Here is what Dubois actually said, in papers published in 1935 and 1937:

"Pithecanthropus [Java Man] was not a man, but a gigantic genus allied to the gibbons, however superior to the gibbons on account of its exceedingly large brain volume and distinguished at the same time by its faculty of assuming an erect attitude and gait [2]. It had the double cephalization [ratio of brain size to body size] of the anthropoid apes in general and half that of man."

"It was the surprising volume of the brain - which is very much too large for an anthropoid ape, and which is small compared with the average, though not smaller than the smallest human brain - that led to the now almost general view that the "Ape Man" of Trinil, Java was really a primitive Man. Morphologically, however, the calvaria [skullcap] closely resembles that of anthropoid apes, especially the gibbon."

"... I still believe, now more firmly than ever, that the Pithecanthropus of Trinil is the real 'missing link'."

"E. Dubois: On the gibbon-like appearance of Pithecanthropus erectus. While possessing many gibbon-like characteristics, P. erectus fills the previously vacant place between the Anthropomorphae and man as regards cephalic coefficient. (Amsterdam Royal Acad., Proc 38, No 6, June 1935)". (Reported in Nature, 136:234, Aug 10 1935)

(The first two paragraphs are quoted by Trinkaus and Shipman, the first and third are quoted by Gould)

Trinkaus and Shipman's comment on this is:

"That Dubois ever claimed his fossils to be a giant gibbon is denied by some authorities, but his words here are unambiguous."

They must be somewhat ambiguous, because Gould's opinion is diametrically opposed:

"In other words, Dubois never said that Pithecanthropus was a gibbon (and therefore the lumbering, almost comical dead end of the legend); rather, he reconstructed Java Man with the proportions of a gibbon in order to inflate the body weight and transform his beloved creature into a direct human ancestor - its highest possible status - under his curious theory of evolution." [3]

The phrases "closely resembles ... the gibbon" and "a gigantic genus allied to the gibbons", are vague. Dubois seems to have thought that Java Man was most similar to, and/or most closely related to, gibbons. (This assessment is rejected by all modern scientists.) Whether that is the same thing as calling it a giant gibbon is debatable, but I would side with Gould here: saying that Java Man was allied to the gibbons does not seem to be the same thing as saying that it was a gibbon.

A later book by Shipman contains further evidence for this viewpoint, in a quote from a 1938 article by Dubois: I never imagined Pithecanthropus as a 'giant Hylobates' [gibbon], only as a giant descendant from a 'generalized' form, which had inherited from its ancestor, the 'gibbonlike appearance', but had ... doubled [its] cephalization ... (Dubois 1938, quoted in Shipman 2001)

What is indisputable is that Dubois was not saying that Pithecanthropus had nothing to do with human evolution, as creationists usually imply. Dubois always remained firmly convinced that Java Man was a human ancestor.

Nor did Dubois decide that the skullcap and human femur found about 45 ft away were unrelated; he always insisted that they belonged to the same creature. He was probably wrong in this, but the error is not of great significance: Java Man was undoubtedly bipedal. This is shown by the Homo erectus skeleton WT 15000, discovered in Kenya in 1984. Its skullcap is very similar to that of Java Man, but its femur and the rest of its skeleton is, with only minor differences, identical to that of modern humans.

Footnotes

1. Answers in Genesis has now abandoned the claim that Dubois dismissed Java Man as a gibbon, and now lists it in their Arguments we think creationists should NOT use web page. Return to text

2. As it turned out, Dubois was correct in saying that Pithecanthropus was bipedal, even though the femur that he used as evidence of bipedality is no longer thought to belong to the same creature as the skull cap. Return to text

3. Dubois' theory was that brain evolution advanced in leaps, in which the brain effectively doubled in complexity from a previous stage. In this scheme, humans had 4 times the "cephalization" of apes, and Pithecanthropus, with its "double cephalization", nicely filled the gap between them. Return to text

References

Gould S.J. (1993): Men of the thirty-third division. In Eight little piggies. (pp. 124-37). New York: W.W.Norton. (an essay about Eugene Dubois' theories on Java Man)

Shipman P. (2001): The man who found the missing link: the extraordinary life of Eugene Dubois. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Theunissen B. (1989): Eugene Dubois and the ape-man from Java. Dordrecht,The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers.

Trinkaus E. and Shipman P. (1992): The Neandertals: changing the image of mankind. New York: Alfred E. Knopf.

Creationist arguments about Java Man



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/gibbon.html, 04/30/2003


Java Man and Turkana Boy The first photo is of the Java Man skullcap. Many creationists consider this an ape, including Gish, who says (Gish 1993): "Now we can see the skullcap is very apelike. Notice that it has no forehead, it's very flat, very typical of the ape. Notice the massive eyebrow ridges, very typical of the ape" ...

"I would tend, quite strongly, to agree with Eugene Dubois and with Marcellin Boule that these creatures [Java Man and Peking Man] were giant primates of some kind."

and: "... it is very likely that Dubois' final assessment of his Pithecanthropus erectus may be the correct one ‐ a very large primate of some kind within the generalized group called apes, possessing no genetic relationship to man whatsoever." (Gish 1995)

The second photo is of the skull of the Homo erectus specimen WT 15000 (the Turkana Boy). Gish (1985) accepts this as human, and suggests (incorrectly) that it was placed in Homo erectus, rather than H. sapiens, only because of its age of 1.6 million years. In a later book, Gish says: "The size and shape of the braincase and a few other characteristics of the postcranial skeleton were the only exceptions when the skeleton of this young boy was compared to those for modern humans."

"...the features of the Nariokotome juvenile were remarkably human with few exceptions." (Gish 1995)

The third picture is a drawing of a modern human skull.

Note that the skull of the Turkana Boy is quite different from a modern skull. To illustrate this, draw a line from the eyebrow ridge to the corner made by the lower jaw and the bottom of the skull. This divides the Turkana Boy's skull into two almost equal-sized parts. With the human skull, the upper part is much larger.

Note also that the Turkana Boy looks very similar to the Java Man skullcap. In fact, Gish's description of Java Man given above could equally well apply to the Turkana Boy. Java Man

also has a brain size of 940 cc (far larger than any ape), compared to the estimated adult size of 910 cc for the Turkana Boy.

Here is another picture, showing both fossils overlaid:

In spite of this remarkable similarity, Gish continues to claim that the Java Man is an ape, while the Turkana Boy is a modern human. In his words, they are "very apelike" and "remarkably human" respectively. If a "human" and an "ape" that look almost identical aren't transitional fossils, what would be?

References Gish D.T. (1985): Evolution: the challenge of the fossil record, El Cajon, CA:Creation‐Life Publishers, 1985.

Gish D.T. (1993): The "missing links" are still missing (part 2). Science, Scripture and Salvation (ICR radio show) Sep 18, 1993.

Gish D.T. (1995). Evolution: the fossils still say no! El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research. (an updated version of Gish 1985)

Related links Creationist arguments about Java Man

Creationist arguments about Homo erectus

Thanks to Brett Vickers for creating the composite picture above.


Gish (1985) and many other creationists have claimed that Eugene Dubois, discoverer of Java Man, hid the existence of two human skulls, called the Wadjak skulls, that had also been discovered on Java. This claim is demonstrably false; there are three separate publications by Dubois which mention the Wadjak skulls (Fezer, 1993).

(Wadjak 1 (shown) was discovered in 1888 by mining engineer B.D. van Rietschoten. Wadjak 2 was more fragmentary and was discovered in 1890 by Dubois.)

Lubenow admits the existence of these publications, but argues that they were governmental reports not intended for public or scientific scrutiny. As such, they do not count as part of the scientific literature, and Dubois is still guilty of

having, in effect, concealed the existence of the Wadjak skulls.

Following is some email correspondence from prominent paleoanthropologist C. Loring Brace, responding to this claim.

Date: Mon, 22 Jan 1996 17:33:37 -0500 (EST) From: "C. Loring Brace" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Sinanthropus/Pithecanthropus

Dear Colleague,

[two paragraphs deleted]

As for Wadjak, the first skull was given to Dubois by the mineworks owner van Rietschoten. Dubois described it in a letter to Dr. Ph. Sluiter (director of the library and Museum in what was then "Batavia") which was published in the Naturkundig Tijdschrift van Nederlandsch-Indie [1] vol. 49 (1890) pp. 209-211. This was read at the Directors' Meeting in March 14, 1889. The journal was not a major phenomenon like Nature or even the publication of the American Museum of Natural History, but it was widely distributed and available in Europe and America. Our library here at Michigan has it, and I first read the University of California's copy years ago (or perhaps even the one in Peabody at Harvard).

That was what sent Dubois to Java from Sumatra where he had been for the previous few years, and, after getting there, he contributed regular quarterly reports to the Verslag van het

Mijnwezen which Hrdlicka translates as the Government Mining Bulletin. I do not know how this gets subsumed under Education, Religion and Industry [2], but it was a technical report that focused on matters of mineral resources although it also included natural history in general and paleontology in particular. In his report, titled in each issue "Palaeontologische onderzoekingen op Java," he mentioned the van Rietschoten find in the 2nd kwartaal 1890 on p. 19 noting that it was of "another race than the Malay". In his report for the 3rd kwartaal, 1890, he described his find of Wadjak II on page 15, noting that it, like Wadjak I, indicated the presence "in Java in earlier times of a human race that can be compared with modern Australians (or Papuans)" (p. 15).

Then he repeats this in the Jaarboek van het Mijnwezen in Nederlandschen Oost-Indie 20(2):60-61 in 1892. All of these reports, although not major publications, should indeed be counted as a legitimate part of the scientific literature. They are available in major libraries all over the world, and have been referred to repeatedly by the people who have continued to make further analyses of the Wadjak material. Keith [3] was not very good at citing the primary literature and could not use German (let alone Dutch) as a scholarly language. I have had to read Dubois' accounts by struggling to deal with the spelling/sound shifts that transform it into German, but, when I have doubted my translations, I have checked them with a colleague who is fluent in Dutch. Dubois clearly felt that his "Pithecanthropus" material was of major significance, and he documented what he considered to be its Pliocene age in fully creditable fashion. By the faunal content, he clearly showed that Wadjak was late Pleistocene which, he thought, made it relatively unimportant which is why he did not devote much attention to it until after World War I. Wadjak and 'Pithecanthropus' had nothing do do with each other in his mind or in the views of any paleoanthropologist, and the attempt to see something sinister in his treatment of Wadjak is based on equal parts ignorance and malice.

I hope this can be of some use to you.

C. L. Brace

Date: Thu, 25 Jan 1996 16:01:21 -0500 (EST) From: "C. Loring Brace" <[email protected]> To: [email protected]

Just one final addition:

All those references to Dubois' papers on Wadjak I sent you were consulted by Hrdlicka in his Skeletal Remains of Early Man, Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collection No. 83, 1930. It was

Hrdlicka's references that sent me back to find the originals which were not hard to locate. This is the classic way that scientific documentation proceeds, and, if nothing else, should illustrate in unassailable published fashion that Dubois' work was part of the ongoing and publically available scientific literature. Hrdlicka's work, of course, is one of the classics of the field.

With kindest regards,

C. L. Brace

Footnotes are by Jim Foley, not C. Loring Brace.

1. Best translated as "Journal of Natural History of the Dutch East Indies" (now Indonesia). Judging from its name, it is not, as Lubenow stated, a bureaucratic report to a government department.

2. Lubenow had claimed that "This publishing was nothing more than Dubois's quarterly and annual reports to the Director of Education, Religion and Industry of the Dutch East Indies...".

3. Sir Arthur Keith, a very prominent scientist in the first half of this century. Keith may have been the inspiration for the creationist claim that Dubois hid Wadjak Man because it would have discredited Java Man as a human ancestor: "... we cannot question his honesty; the Wadjak fossil bones were discovered under the circumstances told by him. There can be no doubt that if, on his return in 1894, he had placed before the anthropologists of the time the ape‐like skull from Trinil side by side with the great‐brained skulls of Wadjak, both fossilised, both from the same region of Java, he would have given them a meal beyond the powers of their mental digestion. Since then our digestions have grown stronger." (Keith, "The Antiquity of Man", 1925; quoted by Lubenow) Keith's comment, however, makes no sense. There is no obvious reason why the Wadjak skulls, which were found in totally unrelated sediments with a far more modern fauna than that of Java Man, should have affected its interpretation in any way. The more plausible explanation for Dubois' subsequent silence about the Wadjak skulls is that, because they were fully modern skulls found in a fully modern fauna, they were much less significant than the Java Man skullcap and Dubois simply never got around to studying them.

Neither Keith, nor any other scientist as far as I am aware, has ever said that Java Man and Wadjak Man were found "at the same level", as often stated in creationist literature. This claim seems to be have been invented by creationists.

References Gish D.T. (1985): Evolution: the challenge of the fossil record, El Cajon, CA:Creation‐Life Publishers.

Fezer K.D. (1993): Creation's incredible witness: Duane T. Gish, Ph.D. Creation/Evolution Issue 33:5-21.

Lubenow M.L. (1992): Bones of contention: a creationist assessment of human fossils, Grand Rapids,MI:Baker Books.

Creationist arguments about Java Man

Duane Gish and Wadjak Man

Wadjak Man, by Peter Brown

Creationist Arguments: Duane Gish and Wadjak Man It is perhaps worth examining the history of Duane Gish's claims on Wadjak Man in some detail. Gish originally claimed, in his first book on the fossil record, that "Dubois concealed the fact that he had also discovered at nearby Wadjak and at approximately the same level [as the Java Man skullcap] two human skulls (known as the Wadjak skulls) ... It was not until 1922, when a similar discovery was about to be announced, that Dubois revealed the fact that he had possessed the Wadjak skulls for over 30 years." (Gish 1979) C. Loring Brace, a prominent paleoanthropologist, informed Gish in a debate in 1982 that Eugène Dubois had in fact published preliminary accounts of the Wadjak skulls in 1890 and 1892. Gish's initial error was pardonable, since Dubois' accounts were in obscure journals, and, as we shall see, legitimate scientists have made the same mistake. But Gish should, if he was interested in correcting possible errors, have asked Brace for his references. He did not, and in 1985 repeated the same claim in the next update of his book. In 1986 Brace published an article on creationist claims about Homo erectus (Brace 1986) in which he listed his references for Dubois' early publications on Wadjak Man. (Gish should surely have seen this article, which was published in a journal devoted to defending evolution against creationism.)

During a debate with Gish in 1992, Karl Fezer repeated Brace's claims, and showed a transparency listing Dubois' early publications on Wadjak Man. Fezer's later account of the debate also listed the references (Fezer 1993). Gish denied that these publications mentioned Wadjak Man (in effect calling Brace a liar), on the grounds that Sir Arthur Keith had claimed in 1925 that Dubois had concealed the existence of the Wadjak skulls. Keith did indeed say that, but he was apparently unaware of Dubois' early publications on Wadjak.

Despite having been not merely informed of the Dubois references, but shown them in a public debate, Gish once again repeated his original claim, essentially unchanged, in his next book:

"Dubois failed to publish the fact that he had also discovered at nearby Wadjak two human skulls (known as the Wadjak skulls) ... It was not until 1922, when a similar discovery was about to be announced, that Dubois published the fact that he had possessed the Wadjak skulls for over thirty years." (Gish 1995) Joyce Arthur, in 1996, pointed out Gish's error once more. In his response, Gish (1997) again claimed that Keith's 1925 statement, and similar ones by W. W. Howells in 1946 and 1959, showed that Dubois had not published on Wadjak, ignoring the fact that if Brace's references were correct (and Gish made no attempt to show they were not), Keith and Howells were simply wrong. Gish then had the gall to say: "Brace claims that Dubois had already published these previous Wadjak finds and therefore I was either ignorant or less than honest in making such a claim. If this is so, I would like to have the documentation from Brace." (Gish 1997, my italics) Given that Gish was first told about Dubois' publications some fifteen years ago, and on many occasions since, I believe this account amply illustrates why Gish's "scholarship" fails to command much respect from legitimate scientists.

References Arthur J. (1996): Creationism: bad science or immoral pseudoscience? Skeptic, 4.4:88‐93.

Brace C.L. (1986): Creationists and the pithecanthropines. Creation/Evolution, Issue 19:16-23. (discusses creationist arguments about Java Man and Peking Man)

Fezer K.D. (1993): Creation's incredible witness: Duane T. Gish, Ph.D. Creation/Evolution, Issue 33:5-21.

Gish D.T. (1979): Evolution: the fossils say no! Ed. 3. San Diego: Creation-Life Publishers. (this is the third edition of a book first published in 1972 and is quite out of date)

Gish D.T. (1985): Evolution: the challenge of the fossil record. El Cajon, CA: Creation-Life Publishers. (an updated version of Gish 1979)

Gish D.T. (1995): Evolution: the fossils still say no! El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation Research. (an updated version of Gish 1985)

Gish D.T. (1997): Gish responds to critique. Skeptic, 5.2:37-41. (a response to Arthur 1996)


Creationist Arguments: Java Man

Creationists and the Pithecanthropines

by C. Loring Brace

University of Michigan This article was originally published in Creation/Evolution, Issue XIX (Winter 1986‐87) by the National Center for Science Education, and is reprinted by permission of Dr. Brace.

Dr. C. Loring Brace is professor of anthropology at the University of Michigan and curator of physical anthropology at the university's Museum of Anthropology. He is a leading authority on human fossils and evolution.

The Middle Pleistocene stretch of time - what I have called the "Pithecanthropine Stage" of human evolution (Brace, 1979) - is a fascinating period to anthropologists and is of interest here for two main reasons. First, the pithecanthropines represent a splendid characterization of life forms that are evolutionarily intermediate between apes and humans; and, second, the pithecanthropines have brought forth pronouncements from creationists that are so blatantly contrary to fact that some kind of public effort is necessary simply to set the record straight.

For that million-year stretch of time between about 1.5 million and 500,000 years ago, the only kind of hominid for which we have any evidence is a form that most anthropologists now refer to as Homo erectus. The first such specimen was discovered in Java nearly a century ago by Dutch physician and anatomist Eugene Dubois who labeled it Pithecanthropus erectus. Modern appraisers usually do not feel that it is distinct enough from Homo to warrant a separate generic name, but Dubois' species erectus is accepted by nearly all.

One "modern" appraiser who has rejected Dubois' initial claims and more recent assessments of his Java finds is Duane Gish. Curiously, in this matter he is not supported by the director of his own institute, Dr. Henry Morris, who declared that "Homo erectus was a true man, but somewhat degenerate in size and culture" (Morris, 1974:174). In contrast, Dr. Gish has concluded, "We believe that the claim for a manlike status for Pithecanthropus should be laid to rest" (Gish, 1979:127). The dilemma of the creationists, of course, is the fact that their own preconceptions require them to categorize something as either ape or human. When they actually encounter a creature that is in between, then they have to throw it in one or the other of the modern categories, and it is not surprising that a form with genuinely intermediate features should be randomly assigned to each of the only possibilities they will accept. From the point of view of their own logic, they are both equally correct. From an examination of the actual evidence, they are both demonstrably wrong.

It should be instructive to spend a moment and find out why Gish has reached the conclusion of his choice. There are two ostensible reasons. First, he raises a matter which he claims illustrates

why Dubois' own findings are not to be believed. Toward this end he states, "Dubois concealed the fact that he also discovered at nearby Wadjak and at approximately the same level two human skulls (known as the Wadjak skulls) with a cranial capacity . . . somewhat above the present average" (Gish, 1979:124-125). He suggests that Dubois withheld publication until 1922 since otherwise his "Java Man" would not have been accepted as a "missing link." The same point is made by a number of other opponents of evolution, one of whom suggests that Dubois' action amounted to "a practical confession of fraud" (Kofahl and Segraves, 1975:127). As Gish has noted, "His failure to reveal this find to the scientific world at the same time he exhibited the Pithecanthropus bones can only be labelled as an act of dishonesty" (Gish, 1979: 125).

To put the matter straight, "nearby Wadjak" is a good one hundred miles of mountainous countryside away from Trinil, the site of Dubois' Pithecanthropus. Nor is it accurate to call them "approximately the same level" when one is well over half a million years old and the other is less than ten thousand. Finally, Dubois did publish preliminary accounts of his Wadjak material in 1889 and 1890 before his Trinil discoveries were even made, and he recapitulated these in print in 1892 before becoming involved in what he correctly realized was the far more significant Pithecanthropus issue. If there is a question of honesty involved, it has nothing to do with Dubois.

The second reason why Gish has questioned the status of Dubois' discovery has to do with anatomical assessment. Relying upon the appraisal published by Boule and Vallois in the third edition of their venerable tome, Fossil Men, Gish repeatedly refers to the Trinil skull as apelike and notes that if only the skull and teeth had been found the creature would have been regarded as closely allied to, if not identical with, the Anthropoids (Gish, 1979:126). In regard to the dentition, Gish has stated that "Every characteristic of these teeth given by Boule and Vallois is simian rather than man-like" (Gish, 1979:126). One should realize, however, that the "every characteristic" in Gish's phrase only refers to those characteristics that were simian and not to the many which they discuss that were not. Boule and Vallois sum up their appraisal of the teeth, noting, "All these facts provide singularly unambiguous confirmation of those that emerged from a study of the cranium" (Boule and Vallois, 1957:122). Now then, what was it that they actually concluded from a study of the cranium? Not what Gish has claimed at all. In their words, "In its principal characters, the Trinil skull-cap is really intermediate between that of an ape, like the chimpanzee, and that of a man of really low status, such as Neandertal man" (Boule and Vallois, 1957:118).

This is the full development of their appraisal of Dubois' famous Pithecanthropus; it is graphically illustrated in the photograph in their book (1957:119, fig. 75); and it is what most anthropologists now accept. In this photograph, the figure on the left is a chimpanzee skull and

that on the right is the skull of a Neandertal of about fifty thousand years ago. In the middle, and obviously half way between in form and dimensions, is the original Pithecanthropus. Now if the creationists have been less than reliable in their appraisal of the first of the Middle Pleistocene hominids discovered, their treatment of the most extensive collection of evidence ‐ that found in China from the late 1920s through the 1930s ‐ is even more bizarre. Their writings display a trail of distortions, personal innuendos, and outright falsehoods that have no faint kinship with anything that can be called science. Gish, for example, has gone on record as saying. "A close examination of the reports related to Peking Man, however, reveal a tangled web of contradictions [and] highly subjective treatment of the data" (Gish, 1979:127). Gish intends this statement to apply to those who did the original work in China, but, as we shall see, it is a description only of his own writing and that of a few others whose primary commitment is to sectarian religious dogma rather than to verifiable reality.

Let us, then, look at the facts of the matter and compare them with what has been said about them. The discovery of a few hominid molar teeth in Middle Pleistocene cave deposits at Choukoutien, just under fifty kilometers southwest of Beijing, stimulated Dr. Davidson Black, a Canadian-born professor of anatomy at Peking Union Medical College, to declare that they were evidence for the presence of a prehistoric population which he labeled, in splendid polysyllabic Latin, Sinanthropus pekinensis (Black, 1927). This led to systematic excavation of the deposits at Choukoutien. Two years later, in 1929, the field season was rewarded by the discovery of a complete and undistorted skull of Black's Sinanthropus. Since this presented a fine mixture of human and anthropoid apelike features, Black felt that his earlier prediction and naming of a new type of hominid fossil had been perfectly justified. After careful consideration of his evidence and the subsequent discoveries at Choukoutien over the next seven years, anthropologists have concluded that Black's work was a model of scientific application but that the new name was not warranted.

The temptation to give dramatic fossil discoveries new and different names is an occupational hazard to which many a fossil finder has succumbed. Just within the past few years, we have had some modern examples of this in the highly publicized clash between Richard Leakey and Donald Johanson. But it does not mean that there is necessarily any doubt concerning the nature or even the significance of the material being discussed. It is often just a matter of what we decide to call it. Names are given by people for their own convenience, and, if different scholars do not agree upon what to call a particular find, this does not mean that they are not talking about the same thing or that there is anything wrong with their descriptions.

Immediately after the discovery of the Choukoutien skull in 1929, Davidson Black telegraphed the head of the Institute of Human Paleontology in Paris, Marcellin Boule, to give him a synopsis of the discovery. He also sent photographs, measurements, and a preliminary descriptive account along with his interpretation. Boule then used this as the basis of his own report to the readership

of the French journal, L'Anthropologie. The only difference between what the two concluded was the fact that Boule felt that, in spite of a series of less primitive features, the fossil belonged in the same category as Dubois' Pithecanthropus while Black felt that it deserved his new genus and species name. History has sided with Boule and even gone one step further. Both the Chinese and the Javanese specimens are now regarded as belonging to the same species, erectus, and their genus is accepted as being the one that includes modern human beings, Homo.

The fact that Boule did not agree with Black on the new name and that most subsequent scholars have agreed with Boule has led Gish to accuse Black of coloring "the facts to fit his scheme" (Gish, 1979:136). Gish then continues with the completely gratuitous slur, "What confidence can we have, therefore, in any of the descriptions or models of Sinanthropus from the hand of Dr. Black?" (Gish, 1979:136). 1 shall later demonstrate why it is that this accusation is without foundation.

In 1934, Davidson Black died suddenly after his preliminary publications had appeared, and his place was taken by Franz Weidenreich, a refugee from Hitler's Germany, who produced the definitive monographs on the fossils found at Choukoutien. These were not done without a hitch, however, because the Japanese invasion of China forced Weidenreich to flee to America before his work was finished. He took his photographs, notes, measurements, and a well-made series of casts, but he left the original fossils in Beijing. Later, these, too, were slated to be sent to America for safe-keeping, but the day they reached the Chinese port of embarkation was December 7, 1941, the day the bombs fell on Pearl Harbor. The ship on which they were to be sent was sunk, and the American marine detachment, in whose luggage they were being carried, was captured by Japanese soldiers. The fossils have never been seen since.

Fortunately, we still have the admirable publications of Black (1931; Black et al., 1934) and Weidenreich (1936, 1937, 1941, 1943) and the casts and models prepared under Weidenreich's direction. We can regret the loss of the originals, but the information which they represented is now the property of all who can read. This, however, is repeatedly denied by Gish, who directs the same kind of accusations toward Weidenreich that he earlier had made toward Black. A healthy skepticism is a necessary part of scientific practice, but, when it goes to the extent of alleging fabrication on the part of particular investigators, it should be backed up by unimpeachable evidence. In the present instance, as we shall see, this is just not the case.

Gish does concede that, if Weidenreich's work is accepted as presented, then the Choukoutien material would indeed qualify as a legitimate intermediate between ape and human status. "If one accepts uncritically Weidenrich's model of Sinanthropus as a true portrayal of the real

Sinanthropus, then he could hardly reject the . . . appraisal . . . that Sinanthropus occupies a position intermediate between anthropoid apes and man" (Gish, 1979:137).

The merits of this assessment can easily be seen as you contemplate the illustration which appears in the final volume of Weidenreich's masterly treatment of the Choukoutien material (FIGURE 3). Here his reconstruction of a Sinanthropus specimen appears between the skull of a female gorilla and the skull of a modern north Chinese male. It is visually obvious that the size of the Sinanthropus brain case is just half way between, and the measurements that are recorded in Weidenreich's monograph amply confirm what the eye tells us. The jaws and teeth also fall between, although closer to the modern human side, and, if one were to take such crucial diagnostic features as canine tooth projection into account, they would be considered entirely human if notably primitive. But since Gish's preconceptions will not allow him to accept the possibility of an intermediate position for Sinanthropus, he does his best to render it unlikely. This he does, not by a consideration of the evidence itself, but by an attempt to impugn Weidenreich's integrity. In developing his case, he says: Today we have no skulls or fragments of Sinanthropus (except two teeth), no reconstruction. . . . All we have are models fashioned by Weidenreich. . . . How reliable are these models? . . . Are they accurate casts of the originals, or do they reflect what Weidenreich thought they should look like? . . . Why do his models differ so greatly from the earlier descriptions?" [Gish, 1979:138] Gish would have us believe that the entire surviving corpus of evidence for the existence and form of Sinanthropus is contained in the model or models constructed by Weidenreich, despite subsequent fossil finds. Having set up this strawman, he then denounces it without ever looking at the evidence upon which it is based. This he does with the words, "I consider these models of Weidenreich to be totally inadmissible as evidence related to the taxonomic affinities of Sinanthropus," concluding with, "If such a case were ever brought to court there would not be the slightest doubt that such hearsay evidence would be ruled inadmissible" (Gish, 1979:138).

The only thing he offers to support his contention that Weidenreich is not to be believed is his repeated allegation that the conclusions of Weidenreich, and others as well, are supposedly at such variance with earlier work. As he claims, "This model is so glaringly different from the earlier description of Sinanthropus . . . that I strongly suspect Weidenreich was guilty of the same lack of objectivity and preconceived ideas that motivated Black" (Gish, 1979:136).

This same charge of a supposed difference between earlier and later accounts of the form of Sinanthropus is also leveled at his principal source of information, the 1957 text by Boule and Vallois, Fossil Men. In Gish's words, "The account of Boule and Vallois in this section varies so decidely from earlier descriptions of Sinanthropus, published elsewhere by Boule, that it is probable that this section was written by Vallois after the death of Boule" (Gish, 1979:136). Presumably, Boule's original description was more to be trusted because, as Gish claimed,

"Boule had visited Peking and Choukoutien and had examined the originals" (Gish, 1979:133). This, however, is pure invention. Boule did not visit Peking, he did not visit Choukoutien, and he never saw the original specimens. Instead, as he made quite clear in print, he relied entirely upon the photographs and information furnished to him initially by Black and later by Weidenreich.

I have already shown that the earliest account of Sinanthropus written by Marcellin Boule differs from that of Davidson Black not in its description of the evidence but only in the name by which it is called. The only other separate account written by Boule appeared seven years later. Gish quotes from this to justify his conclusion that the Sinanthropus specimens were "monkey-like" creatures who could not have been human ancestors because they were being hunted and eaten by "true Men" (Gish, 1979:134, 140).

That 1937 paper by Boule, however, was the first printing of what Gish refers to as the "extensive section" (1979:132) on Sinanthropus that later appears in the text of Fossil Men, and the same photograph of Sinanthropus given by Black to Boule appears in both (Boule, 1937:7, fig. 3; Boule and Vallois, 1957:134, fig. 86). This is the same section which Gish suggests was written by Vallois after Boule's death. On the very same page of that paper which Gish cites as the source for his view that the skulls were "monkey-like" (ignoring the fact that the words monkey-like never appear and that the rest of his quote is garbled from several other pages), Boule renders his summary judgment of the Choukoutien discoveries: il n'en est moins evident que, tant par le volume de leur cerveau que par ce que nous savons de la structure anatomique de leur tete osseuse, le Sinanthrope et son frere le Pithecanthrope s'intercalent, dans le serie des primates superieurs, entre les grands singes anthropomorphes et les hominiens. [Boule, 1937:21] which translates to: It is evident, by the volume of their brains and by what we know of the structure of their skulls, Sinanthropus and his brother Pithecanthropus fall between the great anthropoid apes and men properly so called in the series of higher primates." [Boule and Vallois, 1957:145] This is not my own translation but is taken directly from that "extensive section" on Sinanthropus in the English edition of Fossil Men, which Gish suggests was written by Vallois after the death of Boule. It is faithful to the letter to Boule's rendition of twenty years earlier. In fact, if one goes through Boule's 1937 paper, section by section, paragraph by paragraph, and line by line, and compares it with the relevant segment in Fossil Men, it is evident that Vallois made only very minor editorial changes for the final version.

The supposed differences in the earlier and later accounts of the nature of the material discovered at Choukoutien are simply a fabrication by Gish designed to cast doubt on the work of some of the most respected students of the human fossil record. It is the creationist position, then, and not the work of Black or Weidenreich, which should be regarded as based, at best, on hearsay

evidence when not grounded in demonstrable falsehood. The charge that the evidence for evolution would be ruled inadmissible in court is actually an example of Orwellian "newspeak." In the 1982 Arkansas court decision, it was the creationist viewpoint that was shown to be without merit.

Now let us turn to a consideration of the evidence itself. Despite Gish's claim that the only surviving evidence for the form of Sinanthropus is Weidenreich's model, we have the series of profusely illustrated monographs by both Black and Weidenreich to draw upon, to say nothing of the quantities of material discovered since World War II. Gish has even written that not just the fossils but the very site is a hoax: "There is serious doubt that a cave existed at either level" at Choukoutien (Gish, 1979). FIGURE 4 records my 1980 visit to excavations at these "nonexistent" caves.

Creationists have consistently misunderstood or misrepresented the nature of the fossil record of human evolution. They have tended to vacillate between denying the evidence and trying to force selective parts of it into easy categories of ape (or monkey) and human (meaning modern human), despite the fact that we humans have rather diligently and successfully sought out our fossil ancestry.

Let us refer to some of the specific evidence. FIGURES 3 through 7 show some of the massive amount of evidence unearthed at Choukoutein. Compare them with claims that no such evidence exists. If the early discoveries are forgeries, how could the internal structure of a fossil have been faked? FIGURE 5 is an X-ray view of one of the early crania showing intricate anatomical details. FIGURE 6 is an external view. The back part of a skull found in 1934 (L3) fits perfectly with a front portion found in 1966 (FIGURE 7).

Homo erectus remains are known from Africa, Asia, and Europe. Late examples grade into early Neandertal forms (some scholars even treat Neandertal as late erectus). In summary, Homo erectus is a well-documented, well-dated, and widespread hominid intermediary fossil antedating Homo sapiens.

References

Black, Davidson. 1931. "On an Adolescent Skull of Sinanthropus Pekinensis in Comparison with an Adult Skull of the Same Species and with Other Hominid Skulls, Recent and Fossil. " Palaeontologia Sinica, Series D. 7: 1 -111.

--- 1927. "On a Lower Molar Hominid Tooth from the Chou Kou Tien Deposit." Palaeontologia Sinica, Series D. 7:1:1-28.

Black, D., Teilhard de Chardin, P., Young, C. C., and Pei, W. C. 1934. "Fossil Man in China: The Choukoutien Cave Deposits with a Synopsis of Our Present Knowledge." Memoirs of the Geological Survey of China, Series A. 11:1-166.

Boule, Marcellin. 1937. "Le Sinanthrope." L'Anthropologie. 47:1-2:1-22.

--- 1929. "Le Sinanthropus." L'Anthropologie. 39:455-460.

Boule, Marcellin, and Vallois, Henri-Victor. 1957. Fossil Men. Translated by Michael Bullock. New York: Dryden Press.

Brace, C. Loring. 1979. The Stages of Human Evolution. 2nd. ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Dubois, Eugene. 1922. "The Proto-Australian Fossil Man of Wadjak, Java." Proceedings Koninkli/ke Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam. 23:1013-1051.

--- 1892. "Palaeontologische onderzoekingen op Java." Jaarboek van het Mijnwezen in Nederiandsch-Indie over het jaar 1890-1891. Mededeelingen, pp. 60-6 1.

--- 1890a. 'Wergadering der Directie, gehouden op March 14, 1889." Natuurkundiq Tijdschrift van Nederlandsch Indie Deel XLIX. Achste Seric 10:209-211.

--- 1890b. "Palaeontologische onderzoekingen op Java." Verslag van het Mijnwezen in Nederlansch-Indie. 2 Kwartaal, pp. 18-20; 3 Kwartaal, pp. 12-15.

Gish, Duane T. 1979. Evolution: The Fossils Say No! 3rd. ed. San Diego, CA: CreationLife Publishers.

Johanson, Donald C., and Edey, M. 1981. Lucy: The Beginning of Humankind. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Johanson, Donald C., and White, T. D. 1979. "A Systematic Assessment of Early African Horninids." Science. 203:321-330.

Kofahl, Robert E., and Segraves, Kelly L. 1975. The Creation Explanation. Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw.

Morris, Henry M. (ed.) 1974. Scientific Creationism, Public School Edition. San Diego, CA: Creation-Life Publishers.

Weidenreich, Franz. 1943. "The Skull of Sinanthropus Pekinensis: A Comparative Study on a Primitive Hominid Skull." Palaeontologia Sinica, Series D, Whole Series No. 127, pp. 1-484.

--- 1941. "The Extremity Bones of Sinanthropus Pekinensis. " Palaeontologia Sinica, New Series D, No. 5, Whole Series No. 116, pp. 1-150.

--- 1937. "The Dentition of Sinanthropus Pekinensis." Palaeontologia Sinica, New Series D, No. 1, Whole Series No. 101, pp. 1-180.

--- 1936. "The Mandibles of Sinanthropus Pekinensis: A Comparative Study." Palaeontologia Sinica, Series D., pp. 1-132.



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/brace.html, 04/30/2001


Top view of Pithecanthropus

Top views of the skulls of a chimpanzee, the Java Man skullcap, and a Neandertal. (Taken from Fossil Men, Boule and Vallois 1957)



http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/pith_top.html, 04/28/97


In the year 1887 a young Dutchman named Eugene

Dubois left the Netherlands on a ship bound for the East

Indies. Born in 1858, Dubois had spent seven years

studying medicine at the University of Amsterdam

before taking up a teaching post there. His chief

interest. however, was the evolution theory which had

been proposed

by Charles Darwin some years earlier. Convinced that

the most likely places to find fossilized remnants of

mankind's early ancestors lay in tropical zones, Dubois

quit his job at the university and joined the Dutch

Colonial Army as a medical officer

Arriving first in Sumatra, he was able to obtain financial

support from the army and began excavating in a number of caves. Initial results, however,

proved disappointing, since the fossils he discovered were

too young to yield evidence of the 'missing link' for which

he was searching. . Then he heard news of some exciting

discoveries being made by van Rietschoten in the Wajak

Mountains near Tulungagung in East Java. Moving from

Sumatra, Dubois turned his attention to the region of

Ngawi and in 1891 unearthed his first significant

evidence, a skull cap and upper jaw molar. on the banks of the Solo River at Trinil. He

attributed the fossils to a type of ape which he named Anthropopithecus. But eleven months

later, in August 1892, he discovered a femur on the same level as the previous year's finds,

which appeared to prove that the creature had walked upright. As a result, Dubois

concluded that what he had found was an 'upright walking ape-man'. which he named

Pithecanthropus Erectus. The article which Dubois was to publish in 1894, claiming that

Pithecanthropuswas a distant ancestor of modern man and had lived almost a million years

ago. caused such an outcryamong the scientific community as well as the religious

orthodoxy that he ended up re-burying his discoveries under his own house,where they

remained for the next thirty years.

pithecantropus erectus

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