PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS (Erect

Ape-

See also:

• MAN
• MAN, ISLE OF (anc. Mona)

Man)  , the name given by Dr Eugene Dubois, of the Dutch army medical service, to the imaginary creature which he constructed from fossilized remains found by him in Java . These fragments consisted of a thigh-bone, two teeth, and the upper part of a skull, and were unearthed in 1891-1892 on the left bank of the Bengawan River near Trinil . The skull appears to have been low and depressed with strong supraciliary ridges; the teeth are very large, and the femur is quite human . The teeth and skull were found together, the femur a few yards away a year afterwards . The discoverer, however, stated it as his belief that the fragments were portions of the same skeleton and belonged to a creature half-way between man and the higher apes and of the Pleistocene age . Much discussion followed the " find," and many authorities have given an opinion adverse to Dr Dubois's theory . The prevailing opinion is that the bones are human . They are not held to represent what has been called " the missing link," bridging over the gulf between man and the apes; but almost all authorities are agreed that they constitute a further link in the chain, bringing man nearer his Simian prototype . L . Manouvrier concludes that Homo javanensis walked erect, was of about medium height, and was a true precursor, possibly a direct ancestor, of man . He calls attention to the fact that the cranial capacity decreases in proportion to the antiquity of the human skulls found, and that the pithecanthropus skull has a capacity of from goo to rood cc.—that is, " stands at the level of the smallest which have been occasionally found amongst the reputedly lowest savage peoples." See Dubois, Pithecanthropus erectus (Batavia, 1894) ; a later paper read by Dr Dubois before the Berlin Anthropological Society was translated in the Smithsonian Report for 1898 . Also a paper read by Dr D .

J .

Cunningham before the Royal Dublin Society, January 23, 1895 (reported in Nature, February 28, 1895); O . C . Marsh, SiO2 Al203 Fe20a MgO CaO Na2O K20 H2O Meissen, Saxony . 72.42 11.26 0.75 0.28 1.35 2.86 3.8o 7.64 Corriegills, Arran 72.07 11.26 3.24 tr . 1.53 o•61 5.61 5°45 Scuir of Eigg, Scotland 65.81 14.01 4'43 0'89 2'01 4.15 6'08 2'70 J American Journ. of Science (June 1896); " Le Pithecanthropus et l'origine de l'homme," in Bull. de la soc. d'anthrop. de Paris (1896), pp . 460-67 ; L . Manouvrier, " Discussion du pithecanthropus erectus comme precurseur de 1'homme," in Bull. soc. d'anthrop. de Paris (1895), pp . 13–47 and 216–220: L . Manouvrier, Bull. soc. d'anthrop . (1896), p . 419 sqq .

; " The Trinil Femur contrasted with the Femora of various savage and civilized races," in

Journal of Anat. and Physiol . (1896), xxxi. r seq.; Virchow, " Ober den Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois " in Zeitschrift f . Ethnologie (1895), pp . 336, 435, 648 .