Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History of the Human Race

Java Man

In the preceding chapters, we have reviewed three categories of anomalous evidence relating to human origins and antiquity—human skeletal remains, incised bones, and stone implements of various kinds. At the end of the nineteenth century, on the basis of such evidence, a consensus was building within an influential portion of the scientific community that human beings of the modern type had existed as far back as the Pliocene and Miocene periods—and perhaps even earlier.

Anthropologist Frank Spencer (1984, pp. 13–14) stated: “From accumulating skeletal evidence it appeared as if the modern human skeleton extended far back in time, an apparent fact which led many workers to either abandon or modify their views on human evolution. One such apostate was Alfred Russell Wallace (1823–1913). in 1887, Wallace examined the evidence for early man in the new World, and . . . found not only considerable evidence of antiquity for the available specimens, but also a continuity of type through time. in an effort to explain this, Wallace suggested that . . . man, through culture, had been essentially partitioned from the vagaries of natural selection and was, thereby, a unique creation of the biotic realm.”

to Darwin, this was heresy of the worst sort. But Spencer (1984, p. 14) noted that Wallace’s challenge to evolutionary doctrine “lost some of its potency as well as a few of its supporters when news began circulating of the discovery of a remarkable hominid fossil in Java.” considering the striking way in which the Java man fossils were employed in discrediting and suppressing evidence for the great antiquity of the modern human form, we shall now review their history.

We will discuss the initial discoveries made by Eugene Dubois in the 1890s, the discoveries made by G. H. R. von Koenigswald in the 1930s and 1940s, and the discoveries made by other researchers since 1950. We will then discuss the chemical and radiometric dating of these discoveries, and conclude with a critique of standard scientific presentations of the Java Homo erectus evidence. in this chapter, we shall also discuss the Heidelberg jaw, discovered not long after the original Java man finds and also classified as Homo erectus.

In succeeding chapters, we will examine other paleoanthropological evidence currently employed by scientists to support their hypothesis that the modern human form evolved within the past 100,000 years from more primitive hominid ancestors. We will focus on discoveries made in china (chapter 9) and Africa (chapter 11). in addition to this conventionally accepted evidence, we will also examine the controversial piltdown case (chapter 8) and evidence for living ape-men (chapter 10).

7.1 Dubois and Pithecanthropus Erectus

The city of Bandung lies in the high cool uplands of western Java. From there a road leads eastward, down to the steaming plain of Leles, continuing on to the district town of Madiun. the green, forested peaks of the volcanos Mt. Lawu and Mt. Willis rise against the brilliantly blue tropical sky. pushing onward one arrives at the kampong, or village, of Trinil, surrounded by fields of rice and sugar cane, as well as groves of coconut trees. past the village, the road ends on a high bank overlooking the Solo River. Here one encounters a small stone monument, marked with an arrow pointing toward a sand pit on the opposite bank. the monument also carries a cryptic German inscription, “p.e. 175 m OnO 1891/93,” indicating that Pithecanthropus erectus was found 175 meters east northeast from this spot, during the years 1891–1893.

the discoverer of Pithecanthropus erectus was Eugene Dubois, born in eijsden, Holland, in 1858, the year before Darwin published The Origin of Species. As a boy, Dubois explored the nearby limestone quarries, filling his pockets with fossils. Although the son of devout Dutch Catholics, the idea of evolution, especially as it applied to the question of human origins, fascinated him. His imagination was quickened by this passage in A. R. Wallace’s Malay Archipelago (1869): “With what interest must every naturalist look forward to the time when the caves and tertiary deposits of the tropics may be thoroughly examined and the past history and earliest appearance of the great man-like apes be at length made known.”

After studying medicine and natural history at the University of Amsterdam, Dubois became a lecturer in anatomy at the Royal normal School in 1886. But his real love remained evolution. Dubois knew that Darwin’s opponents were constantly pointing out the almost complete lack of fossil evidence for human evolution. He carefully studied the principal evidence then available—the bones of Neanderthal specimens. these were regarded by most authorities (among them Thomas Huxley) as too close to the modern human type to be considered truly intermediate between fossil apes and modern humans. the German scientist Ernst Haeckel had, however, predicted that the bones of a real missing link would eventually be found. Haeckel even commissioned a painting of the creature, whom he called Pithecanthropus (in Greek, pitheko means “ape,” and anthropus means “man”). influenced by Haeckel’s vision of Pithecanthropus, Dubois resolved to someday find the ape-man’s bones.

Mindful of Darwin’s suggestion that humanity’s forbearers lived in “some warm, forest-clad land,” Dubois became convinced Pithecanthropus would be found in Africa or the east indies. Because he could more easily reach the east indies, then under Dutch rule, he decided to journey there and begin his quest. He applied first to private philanthropists and the government, requesting financing for a scientific expedition, but was turned down. He then accepted an appointment as an army surgeon in Sumatra. With his friends doubting his sanity, he gave up his comfortable post as a college lecturer and with his young wife set sail for the east indies in December 1887 on the S. S. Princess Amalie.

7.1.1 Initial Discoveries

In 1888, Dubois found himself stationed at a small military hospital in the interior of Sumatra. His exact movements during this period remain somewhat unclear, but from a variety of accounts the following general sequence emerges. The year he arrived in Sumatra, Dubois published a scientific paper titled “On the need for an investigation of an ice Age Fauna in the Dutch east indies, and especially in Sumatra.” He was, of course, primarily interested in finding the remains of human ancestors. Dubois wrote: “Since all apes—and notably the anthropoid apes—are inhabitants of the tropics, and since man’s forerunners, as they have gradually lost their coat of hair, must certainly have continued to live in warm regions, we are inescapably led toward the tropics as the area in which we may expect to find the fossilized precursors of man” (von Koenigswald

1956, p. 28).

Dubois’s writings attracted the attention of officials of the colonial Mining Authority. In its first quarterly report for the year 1889, the Mining Authority informed its readers that Dubois had been authorized to undertake paleontological research in Sumatra. in his spare time, and using his own funds, Dubois investigated Sumatran caves, finding fossils of rhino and elephant, and the teeth of an orangutan, but no hominid remains.

In 1890, after suffering an attack of malaria, Dubois was placed on inactive duty and transferred from Sumatra to Java, where the climate was somewhat drier and healthier. He and his wife set up housekeeping in tulungagung, on eastern Java’s southern coast. the Mining Authority gave him permission to carry out his paleontological explorations in Java, supplying him with two sergeants from the corps of military engineers and a crew of fifty convict laborers. At the nearby marble quarry at Wadjak, Dubois turned up two fossil human skulls, both modern in type (related to the Australian aborigines) and therefore not worthy of consideration as ancestral ape-men. interestingly enough, Dubois did not report these skulls to the scientific world until 1922.

In November 1890, at Kedungbrubus, Dubois made another find—a fossil jaw with part of a tooth root embedded in it. in a preliminary report, he judged it to be human (von Koenigswald 1956, p. 31). this specimen was not fully described until 1924, at which time Dubois designated it Pithecanthropus.

7.1.2 The Discoveries at Trinil

During the dry season of 1891, Dubois conducted excavations on the bank of the Solo River in central Java, near the village of trinil. His laborers took out many fossil animal bones. in September, they turned up a particularly interesting item—a primate tooth, apparently a third upper right molar, or wisdom tooth. Dubois, believing he had come upon the remains of an extinct giant chimpanzee, ordered his laborers to concentrate their work around the place where the tooth had turned up. in October, they found what appeared to be a turtle shell. But when Dubois inspected it, he saw it was actually the top part of a cranium (Figure 7.1), heavily fossilized and having the same color as the volcanic soil. The fragment’s most distinctive feature was the large, protruding ridge over the eye sockets, leading Dubois to suspect the cranium had belonged to an ape. the onset of the rainy season then brought an end to the year’s digging. in a report published in the government mining bulletin, Dubois said about the tooth and skullcap, “that both specimens come from a great manlike ape was at once clear” (time-Life 1973, p. 40). there was no suggestion that the fossils belonged to a creature transitional to humans. the term “manlike” (or “anthropoid”) is widely used with reference to modern apes such as chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, although these are not considered ancestral to human beings.

Figure 7.1. Pithecanthropus skullcap discovered by Eugene Dubois in 1891 in Java (Wendt 1972, p. 167).

In August 1892, Dubois returned to trinil and found there—among bones of deer, rhinoceroses, hyenas, crocodiles, pigs, tigers, and extinct elephants—a fossilized humanlike femur (thighbone). This femur (Figure 7.2) was found about 45 feet from where the skullcap and molar were dug up. Later another molar was found about 10 feet from the skullcap. Dubois believed the molars, skull, and femur all came from the same animal, which he still considered to be an extinct giant chimpanzee (von Koenigswald 1956, p. 31).

Figure 7.2. thighbone found by Eugene Dubois at trinil, Java (Boule 1923, p. 100). Dubois attributed it to Pithecanthropus erectus.

The British researcher Richard Carrington (1963, p. 84) stated in his book A Million Years of Man : “Dubois was at first inclined to regard his skull cap and teeth as belonging to a chimpanzee, in spite of the fact that there is no known evidence that this ape or any of its ancestors ever lived in Asia. But on reflection, and after corresponding with the great Ernst Haeckel, professor of Zoology at the University of Jena, he declared them to belong to a creature which seemed admirably suited to the role of the ‘missing link.’” We have not found any correspondence Dubois may have exchanged with Haeckel, but if further research were to turn it up, it would add considerably to our knowledge of the circumstances surrounding the birth of Pithecanthropus erectus. Obviously, both men had a substantial emotional and intellectual stake in finding an ape-man specimen. Haeckel, on hearing from Dubois of his discovery, telegraphed this message: “From the inventor of Pithecanthropus to his happy discoverer!” (Wendt 1972, p. 167).

It was only in 1894 that Dubois finally published a complete report of his discovery, titled “Pithecanthropus erectus, a Man-like Species of transitional Anthropoid from Java.” therein he wrote: “Pithecanthropus is the transitional form which, in accordance with the doctrine of evolution, must have existed between man and the anthropoids” (von Koenigswald 1956, p. 31). Pithecanthropus erectus, we should carefully note, had itself undergone an evolutionary transition within the mind of Dubois, from fossil chimpanzee to transitional anthropoid.

What factors, other than Haeckel’s influence, led Dubois to consider his specimen transitional between fossil apes and modern humans? Dubois found that the volume of the Pithecanthropus skull was in the range of 800–1000 cubic centimeters. Modern apes average 500 cubic centimeters, while modern human skulls average 1400 cubic centimeters, thus placing the trinil skull midway between them. to Dubois, this indicated an evolutionary relationship. But logically speaking, one could have creatures with different sizes of brains without having to posit an evolutionary progression from small to large. Furthermore, in the Pleistocene many mammalian species were represented by forms much larger than today’s. thus the Pithecanthropus skull might belong not to a transitional anthropoid but to an exceptionally large Middle Pleistocene gibbon, with a skull bigger than that of modern gibbons.

today, anthropologists still routinely describe an evolutionary progression of hominid skulls, increasing in size with the passage of time—from Early Pleistocene Australopithecus (first discovered in 1924), to Middle Pleistocene Java man (now known as Homo erectus), to Late Pleistocene Homo sapiens sapiens. But the sequence is preserved only at the cost of eliminating skulls that disrupt it. For example, the castenedolo skull, discussed in chapter 6, is older than that of Java man but is larger in cranial capacity. In fact, it is fully human in size and morphology. Even one such exception is sufficient to invalidate the whole proposed evolutionary sequence.

Dubois observed that although the trinil skull was very apelike in some of its features, such as the prominent brow ridges, the thighbone was almost human. this indicated that Pithecanthropus had walked upright, hence the species designation erectus. it is important, however, to keep in mind that the femur of Pithecanthropus erectus was found fully 45 feet from the place where the skull was unearthed, in a stratum containing hundreds of other animal bones. this circumstance makes doubtful the claim that both the thighbone and the skull actually belonged to the same creature or even the same species.

7.1.3 Reports Reach Europe

When Dubois’s reports began reaching Europe, they received much attention. in Meeting Prehistoric Man, von Koenigswald (1956, p. 26) commented on Java man’s significance: “Dubois’s find came at just the right moment: at a time when the conflict around Darwinism was at its height. For the scientific world it constituted the first concrete proof that man is subject not only to biological but also to paleontological laws.” the discoverer of Lucy, Donald c. Johanson, in describing the expectant mood of scientists in the late nineteenth century, wrote: “if the theory of evolution had any validity whatsoever, then human fossils would have to reveal an increasing retreat toward primitiveness as one tracked them deeper into time” (Johanson and edey 1981, p. 30). Pithecanthropus erectus appeared to amply satisfy this requirement, and even today, it is advertised (under the name Homo erectus) as a critical piece of evidence confirming the theory of evolution.

Haeckel, of course, was among those celebrating Pithecanthropus as the strongest proof to date of human evolution. “now the state of affairs in this great battle for truth has been radically altered by Eugene Dubois’s discovery of the fossil Pithecanthropus erectus,” proclaimed the triumphant Haeckel. “He has actually provided us with the bones of the ape-man I had postulated. This find is more important to anthropology than the much-lauded discovery of the X-ray was to physics” (Wendt 1972, p. 167). Haeckel would also state that Java man “was truly a Pliocene remainder of that famous group of the higher catarrhines [Old World apes], which were the pithecoid ancestors of man. He is indeed the long-searched-for Missing Link” (Bowden 1977, p. 128). there is an almost religious tone of prophecy and fulfillment in Haeckel’s remarks. But Haeckel had a history of overstating physiological evidence to support the doctrine of evolution; an academic court at the University of Jena once found him guilty of falsifying drawings of embryos of various animals in order to demonstrate his particular view of the origin of species (Section 1.3).

7.1.4 Dubois Journeys to Europe with Java Man

In 1895, Dubois decided to return to Europe to display his Pithecanthropus to what he was certain would be an admiring and supportive audience of scientists. taking 215 cases of other fossils, he boarded a ship along with his family. during a storm at sea, Dubois was especially concerned about his prized Pithecanthropus erectus specimens. Standing with the box containing Pithecanthropus, Dubois said to his wife, “if something happens, you’re to take care of the children. I’ve got to look after this” (time-Life 1973, p. 44).

Soon after arriving in Europe, Dubois exhibited his specimens and presented reports at the third international congress of Zoology at Leyden, Holland. Although some of the scientists present at the congress were, like Haeckel, anxious to support the discovery as a fossil ape-man, others thought it merely an ape, while still others challenged the idea that the bones belonged to the same individual.

Dubois exhibited his treasured bones at Paris, London, and Berlin. in December of 1895, experts from around the world gathered at the Berlin Society for Anthropology, ethnology, and prehistory to pass judgement on Dubois’s Pithecanthropus specimens. the president of the Society, dr. Virchow, refused to chair the meeting. in the controversy-ridden discussion that followed, the Swiss anatomist Kollman said the creature was an ape. Virchow himself said that the femur was human, and further stated: “the skull has a deep suture between the low vault and the upper edge of the orbits. Such a suture is found only in apes, not in man. thus the skull must belong to an ape. in my opinion this creature was an animal, a giant gibbon, in fact. the thigh-bone has not the slightest connection with the skull” (Wendt 1972, pp. 167–168). this opinion contrasted strikingly with that of Haeckel and others, who remained convinced that Dubois’s Java man was a genuine human ancestor.

As Dubois traveled from city to city, carrying his Pithecanthropus fossils with him, controversy continued. Some were suspicious because the discoveries had been made in Java without any opportunity for confirmation by other scientists on the scene. nevertheless, Dubois repeatedly defended his ape-man interpretation of the fossils. For example, when Sir Arthur Keith of Britain maintained that Pithecanthropus erectus was actually just a somewhat primitive human, Dubois personally brought his fossils for Keith to examine, but even after seeing them Keith maintained his dissent (Goodman 1982, p. 60).

Dubois carried his bones around with him on his paleontological pilgrimage in a battered suitcase. Once, in Paris, he went to show the bones to Leone Pierre Manouvrier, a noted French anthropologist. in Manouvrier’s laboratory, the two talked till midnight and then went to a restaurant. Upon leaving, dubois realized that he had forgotten his suitcase. Rushing back to the restaurant, Dubois asked desperately, “Where is Pithecanthropus!” it turned out that a waiter had the suitcase. dubois hurriedly opened it, assuring himself that the fossils were still inside. Manouvrier suggested dubois sleep that night with the bones under his pillow (time-Life 1973, p. 45).

dubois and Manouvrier attempted a reconstruction of the whole Java man skull, including the facial region, for which no bones were actually discovered. it is apparent that the entire jaw and facial structure were simply imagined (Boule

1923, p. 105). Some authorities thought dubois and Manouvrier had reconstructed the skull improperly, making the cranial curve appear too low. A reconstruction that featured a higher skull profile made Pithecanthropus appear much more human (von Koenigswald 1956). Another imaginative reconstruction of the Java man skull was attempted by J. H. W. McGregor (Osborn 1916, p. 79). About a full-scale statue of Java man, Boule (1923, p. 105) stated: “dubois ventured still further in the realm of imagination when he exhibited at the international exhibition of 1900, in the dutch indies pavilion, a painted model of Pithecanthropus as he appeared in life.”

in light of the incompleteness of the Java man skeletal remains and the doubtful circumstances of their discovery, it is amazing numerous scientists accepted the hypothetical Pithecanthropus erectus and wrote so many books about him.

7.1.5 The Selenka Expedition

To resolve some of the questions surrounding the Pithecanthropus fossils and their discovery, Emil Selenka, professor of zoology at Munich University in Germany, prepared a full-fledged expedition to Java, but he died before it departed. His wife, professor Lenore Selenka, took over the effort and conducted excavations at trinil in the years 1907–1908, employing 75 laborers to hunt for more Pithecanthropus erectus fossils. Altogether, Selenka’s team of geologists and paleontologists sent back to europe 43 boxes of fossils, but they included not a single new fragment of Pithecanthropus. Sir Arthur Keith (1911) reviewed the results of the Selenka expedition in the journal Nature and reported that the geological stratification at Trinil was unclear. Three of the geologists with the expedition thought the deposits were pleistocene, perhaps recent, but two other experts agreed with dubois that they might be pliocene. As far as the bones themselves were concerned, their age was uncertain. Some of the geologists believed volcanic activity could have caused their fossilization, which therefore was not a sure sign of great age. the bones might have been recent, and might have been mixed in with older fossils by floods. The report mentioned a flood that occurred in Java in 1909, sending mud slides down the volcanic mountainsides, killing 500 persons and sweeping away entire villages. perhaps even more troubling was the discovery in the trinil strata of signs of a human presence— splintered animal bones, charcoal, and foundations of hearths. Signs like this led Lenore Selenka to conclude that humans and Pithecanthropus erectus were contemporary (Bowden 1977, pp. 134–135). the implications of all this for an evolutionary interpretation of dubois’s Pithecanthropus specimens were, and still are, unsettling.

Furthermore George Grant Maccurdy, a Yale professor of anthropology, wrote in his book Human Origins (1924a, p. 316): “the Selenka expedition of 1907–1908 . . . secured a tooth which is said by Walkoff to be definitely human. it is a third molar from a neighboring stream bed and from deposits older (pliocene) than those in which Pithecanthropus erectus was found. Should this tooth prove to be human, Pithecanthropus could no longer be regarded as a precursor of man. instead it would simply give us the cross section of a different limb of the primate tree whose branches now represent the various types of Hominidae.” the beds referred to by Maccurdy as being older than the Pithecanthropus erectus deposits might be the djetis Beds of the putjangan formation, now placed in the early pleistocene or in the early Middle pleistocene (Section 7.5.1).

in the aftermath of the Selenka expedition, tourists began coming to Java to look at the place where Java man had been discovered. they found the site littered with hundreds of beer bottles left by the thirsty scientists. As might be expected, many of the pilgrims were hoping they might stumble upon a Pithecanthropus bone. The local residents, who would find all kinds of bones washed out of the ground after floods, obliged them by selling them assorted pieces of skeletons. On december 27, 1926, a newspaper in Batavia announced that dr. c. e. J. Heberlein had found at trinil a new skull of Pithecanthropus. But it turned out to be a large ball-like joint from the leg bone of a fossil elephant.

7.1.6 Dubois Withdraws from the Battle

Meanwhile, the status of dubois’s ape-man remained somewhat controversial. Surveying the range of opinion about Pithecanthropus, Berlin zoologist Wilhelm dames gathered statements from 25 scientists: three said Pithecanthropus was an ape, five said it was human, six said it was an ape-man, six said it was a missing link, and two said it was a link between the missing link and man. virchow had said: “All i can do is warn against drawing decisive conclusions from these few pieces of bone about the greatest question facing us in the study of our creation. Pithecanthropus will remain doubtful as a transitional form until someone can demonstrate how this transition, which to me is conceivable only in my dreams, actually came true” (Wendt 1972, p. 169).

But although virchow and others maintained their doubts, many scientists followed Haeckel in hailing Java man as stunning proof of darwin’s theory. Some used Java man to discredit evidence for a fully human presence in the tertiary. As we learned in Section 5.5.13, W. H. Holmes (1899, p. 470) dismissed discoveries of stone tools in the tertiary auriferous gravels of california because they “implied a human race older by at least one-half than Pithecanthropus erectus of dubois, which may be regarded as an incipient form of human creature only.”

At a certain point, dubois became completely disappointed with the mixed reception the scientific community gave to his Pithecanthropus. He stopped showing his specimens. Some say that he kept them for some time beneath the floorboards in his home. in any case, they remained hidden from view for some 25 years, until 1932.

During and after the period of withdrawal, the controversies concerning Pithecanthropus continued. Marcellin Boule, director of the institute of Human paleontology in paris, reported (1923, p. 96), as had other scientists, that the layer in which the Pithecanthropus skullcap and femur were said to have been found contained numerous fossil bones of fish, reptiles, and mammals. Why, therefore, should anyone believe the skullcap and femur came from the same individual or even the same species? Boule, like virchow (Section 7.1.4), stated that the femur was identical to that of a modern human whereas the skullcap resembled that of an ape, possibly a large gibbon. dr. F. Weidenreich, honorary director of the Cenozoic Research Laboratory at Peiping Union Medical College, also stated (1941, p. 70) that there was no justification for attributing the femur and the skullcap to the same individual. the femur, Weidenreich said, was very similar to that of a modern human, and its original position in the strata was not securely established. Modern researchers have employed chemical dating techniques in order to determine whether or not the original Pithecanthropus skull and femur were both contemporary with the Middle pleistocene trinil fauna, but the results were inconclusive (Section 7.5.2).

7.1.7 More Femurs

The belated revelation that more femurs had been discovered in Java further complicated the issue. in 1932, dr. Bernsen and eugene dubois recovered three femurs from a box of fossil mammalian bones in the Leiden Museum in the netherlands. the box contained specimens said to have been excavated in 1900 by dubois’s assistant, Mr. Kriele, from the same trinil deposits on the left bank of the Solo river that had yielded Dubois’s first Java man finds. Dr. Bernsen died very shortly thereafter, without providing further information about the details of this museum discovery.

dubois (1932, p. 719) stated that he was not present when the femurs were taken out by Kriele. therefore the exact location of the femurs in the excavation, which was 75 meters (246 feet) long by 6–14 meters (20–46 feet) wide, was unknown to him. According to standard paleontological procedures, this uncertainty greatly reduces the value of the bones as evidence of any sort. nevertheless, as we shall see, authorities later assigned these femurs to a particular stratum without mentioning the dubious circumstances of their discovery in boxes of fossils over 30 years after they were originally excavated (Section 7.6). Moreover, G. H. R. von Koenigswald (1956, p. 36) reported that Dubois’s collection “comprised finds from various sites and various ages, which are very inadequately distinguished, because some of the labels got lost.”

eugene dubois (1934, p. 139) reported that in december of 1932 he discovered a fragment of a fourth new femur in the same collection in which the others had been found. Once again, dubois pointed out that the original place of excavation was unknown. in August 1935, a museum employee named van der Steen handed dubois yet another femur fragment from the collection, but dubois said that this bone was “certainly not from trinil but from another part of the Kendeng region.” dubois (1935, p. 850) speculated that it may have been found at Kedungbrubus, but he admitted that he was not really sure.

the existence of these additional femurs has important implications for the original Pithecanthropus skull and femur found by dubois in the 1890s. As we have seen, the fact that the apelike skull and humanlike femur were found at a great distance from each other is sufficient to suggest that they belonged not to one ape-man creature but to two different creatures, one apelike and the other fully human. in response, one might argue, as dubois’s supporters did, that the odds of an apelike creature leaving a skull and no leg bones and a man leaving a leg bone and no skull so close to each other were remote. if it were not possible to prove there were two creatures, it would be best to assign the bones to one creature. dubois suggested that the bones were found separated because the Pithecanthropus had been dismembered by a crocodile (Bowden 1977, p. 127). But if you throw in more humanlike femurs, that argument loses a great deal of its force. Where were the other skulls? Were they apelike skulls, like the one found? And what about the skull that was found? does it really go with the femur that was found 45 feet away? Or does it belong with one of the other femurs that later turned up? Or maybe with a femur of an entirely different sort?

7.1.8 Are the Trinil Femurs Human?

M. H. day and t. i. Molleson (1973, p. 151) concluded that “the gross anatomy, radiological [X-ray] anatomy, and microscopical anatomy of the trinil femora does not distinguish them significantly from modern human femora.” They also said that Homo erectus femurs from china (Zhoukoudian) and Africa (Olduvai Hominid 28) “are anatomically similar, and distinct from those of trinil” (day and Molleson 1973, p. 152).

In 1984, Richard Leakey and three American scientists discovered an almost complete skeleton of Homo erectus in Kenya. Examining the leg bones, these scientists found that the femurs differed substantially from those of modern human beings: “the biomechanical neck length of 85 mm is well over 3 standard deviations from the mean of a sample of H. sapiens. As well as having a long femoral neck, the neck-shaft angle is very small at 110 degrees, being 5 standard deviations from the mean of the same H. sapiens population” (Brown et al. 1985, p. 791). About the Java discoveries, the authors stated: “From trinil, indonesia, there are several fragmentary and one complete (but pathological) femora. despite the fact that it was these specimens that led to the species name [Pithecanthropus erectus], there are doubts as to whether they are H. erectus with the most recent consensus being that they probably are not” (Brown et al. 1985, p. 789).

in summary, Brown et al. (1985) and day and Molleson (1973) agreed that the trinil femurs were not like those of Homo erectus, while day and Molleson (1973) said the trinil femurs were like those of modern Homo sapiens.

What is to be made of these revelations? the Java thighbones have traditionally been taken as evidence of an ape-man (Pithecanthropus erectus, now called Homo erectus) existing around 800,000 years ago in the Middle pleistocene. Should we now accept them as evidence for anatomically modern humans existing 800,000 years ago? perhaps wisely, Brown and his associates offered in their report no suggestions about the real age of the human femurs found at trinil. there is safety in silence when confronting disconcerting paleontological anomalies.

Some have said that the femurs were mixed in from higher levels. Of course, if one insists that the humanlike trinil femurs were mixed in from higher levels, then why not the Pithecanthropus skull as well? that would eliminate entirely the original Java man find, long advertised as solid proof of human evolution.

7.1.9 Dubois Backs Away from His Original Claims

Late in his life, Dubois concluded that the skullcap of his beloved Pithecanthropus belonged to a large gibbon, an ape not thought by evolutionists to be closely related to humans (Gowlett 1984, p. 17). But the heretofore skeptical scientific community was not about to say good-bye to Java man, for by this time Pithecanthropus was firmly entrenched in the ancestry of modern Homo sapiens. Dubois’s denials were dismissed as the whims of a cantankerous old man. If anything, the scientific community wanted to remove any remaining doubts about the nature and authenticity of Java man. this, it was hoped, would fortify the whole concept of darwinian evolution, of which human evolution was the most highly publicized and controversial aspect.

Despite the doubts about the Trinil find expressed by Dubois himself in his later years, and by other scientists from the 1890s to the present, public presentations remain unchanged. visitors to museums around the world still find models of the Trinil skullcap and femur portrayed as belonging to the same Middle pleistocene Homo erectus individual. In 1984, the much-advertised Ancestors exhibit, at the Museum of natural History in New York brought together from around the world the major fossil evidence for human evolution, including prominently displayed casts of the trinil skullcap and femur.

7.2 The Heidelberg Jaw

In addition to dubois’s Java man discoveries, further evidence relating to human evolution turned up in the form of the Heidelberg jaw. On October 21,

1907, daniel Hartmann, a workman at a sand pit at Mauer, near Heidelberg, Germany, discovered a large jawbone at the bottom of the excavation, at a depth of 82 feet. the workmen were on the lookout for bones, and many other nonhuman fossils had already been found there and turned over to the geology department at the nearby University of Heidelberg. the workman then brought the jaw (Figure 7.3) over to J. Rösch, the owner of the pit, who sent a message to dr. Otto Schoetensack: “For twenty long years you have sought some trace of early man in my pit . . . yesterday we found it. A lower jaw belonging to early man has been found on the floor of the pit, in a very good state of preservation” (Wendt 1972, p. 161).

Figure 7.3. The Heidelberg mandible, discovered in 1907 at Mauer, near Heidelberg, Germany (Osborn 1916, p. 98).

Professor Schoetensack designated the creature Homo heidelbergensis, dating it using the accompanying fossils to the Günz-Mindel interglacial period. david pilbeam (1972, p. 169) said: “it appears to date from the Mindel glaciation, and its age is somewhere between 250,000 and 450,000 years.”

The German anthropologist Johannes Ranke, an opponent of evolution, wrote in the 1920s that the Heidelberg jaw belonged to a representative of Homo sapiens rather than an apelike predecessor ( Wendt 1972, p. 162).

Even today, the Heidelberg jaw remains somewhat of a morphological mystery. the thickness of the mandible and the apparent lack of a chin are features common in Homo erectus. But mandibles of some modern Australian aboriginals are also massive compared to jaws of modern europeans and have chins that are less well developed (Le Gros clark and campbell 1978, p. 96, figure 11).

According to Frank e. poirier (1977, p. 213), the teeth in the Heidelberg jaw are closer in size to those of modern Homo sapiens than those of Asian Homo erectus (Java man and peking man). t. W. phenice of Michigan State University wrote (1972, p. 64): “the teeth are remarkably like those of modern man in almost every respect, including size and cusp patterns.”

Modern opinion thus confirms Ranke, who wrote in 1922: “The teeth are typically human; the canines do not project above the level of the other teeth, and the third molar, which in primitive races of men—for instance often in the aboriginal Australians—is similar in size to or even larger than the second, is smaller in the Heidelberg jaw, just as in our more advanced races today” ( Wendt 1972, p. 162).

Many Homo erectus jaws are characterized by projecting canines and a diastema, a gap in the teeth that accommodates the tip of a projecting canine. the fact that these features were absent in the Heidelberg jaw, and other considerations, led poirier (1977, p. 213) to question: “is Heidelberg a representative of Homo erectus or a primitive member of the species H. sapiens?”

The Heidelberg jaw is one of the few european fossils generally attributed to Homo erectus. Another is the Vértesszöllös occipital fragment, from a Middle pleistocene site in Hungary.

The morphology of the Vértesszöllös occipital is even more puzzling than that of the Heidelberg jaw. david pilbeam (1972, p. 169) wrote: “the occipital bone does not resemble that of H. erectus, or even archaic man, but instead that of earliest modern man. Such forms are dated elsewhere as no older than 100,000 years.” Pilbeam believed the Vértesszöllös occipital to be approximately the same age as the Heidelberg jaw, between 250,000 and 450,000 years old. if the Vértesszöllös occipital is modern in form, it helps confirm the genuineness of anatomically modern human skeletal remains of similar age found in england at ipswich (Section 6.1.3) and Galley Hill (6.1.2.1).

Returning to the Heidelberg jaw, we note that the circumstances of discovery were less than perfect. if an anatomically modern human jaw had been found by a workman in the same sand pit, it would have been subjected to merciless criticism and judged recent. After all, no scientists were present at the moment of discovery. But the Heidelberg jaw, because it fits, however imperfectly, within the bounds of evolutionary expectations, has been granted a dispensation.

7.3 Further Java Man Discoveries by Von Koenigswald

In 1929, another ancient human ancestor was discovered, this time in china. eventually, scientists would group Java man, Heidelberg man, and peking man together as examples of Homo erectus, the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens. But initially, the common features and evolutionary status of the Indonesian, chinese, and German fossils were not obvious, and paleoanthropologists felt it particularly necessary to clarify the status of Java man.

In 1930, Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald of the Geological Survey of the netherlands east indies was dispatched to Java. in his book Meeting Prehistoric Man, von Koenigswald (1956, p. 55) wrote: “despite the discovery of Pekin man, it remained necessary to find a further Pithecanthropus sufficiently complete to prove the human character of this disputed fossil.”

Upon personally examining dubois’s Pithecanthropus skull, von Koenigswald (1956, p. 33) had noted: “it is no more than a calvarium from which the most important parts are missing—the temporal region, which is essential to an accurate assessment of its nature.” dubois had attributed three teeth (two large molars and one premolar) to his Java man specimen, but von Koenigswald believed that only one of them belonged to Pithecanthropus. the others were apparently from the jaw of an orangutan. von Koenigswald (1956, p. 34) concluded: “it therefore becomes manifest on what shaky ground dubois erected his hypothetical building, and we can only wonder at the boldness and tenacity with which he defended his Pithecanthropus.”

Von Koenigswald, like dubois, was fascinated by fossils as a youth, having also gathered a collection of ancient bones, teeth, and shells. He managed to put himself through a university education in Germany during the troubled years following the First World War, and upon graduation obtained a position as a museum assistant in Munich. in 1930, he took an opportunity to join the Geological Survey in the Dutch East Indies, where his finds would eventually gain him a reputation as one of the twentieth century’s greatest fossil hunters.

7.3.1 The Ngandong Fossils

Von Koenigswald arrived in Java in January 1931. in August of that same year, one of von Koenigswald’s colleagues, the dutch archeologist ter Haar, was surveying the Kendeng Hills region near trinil. He set up camp at the kampong of ngandong on the River Solo. One evening at sundown, while going to the river for a bath, he happened upon a terrace of old river gravels, from which he pulled out a buffalo skull and some other bones. A trained native collector, or mantri, named Samsi, who was employed by the Geological Survey, was given the job of excavating the site. Samsi dutifully sent boxes of fossils back to the city of Bandung, where they were examined by dr. W. F. F. Oppenoorth, the head of the Geological Survey. On September 15, 1931, Oppenoorth examined a specimen labeled by Samsi as a tiger skull and determined it was actually the major portion of a humanlike braincase. More fragments turned up in the boxes of bones arriving in Bandung, and others were turned over to Oppenoorth at the ngandong site. Von Koenigswald (1956, pp. 65–77) classified the Solo specimens discovered in the fall of 1931 as a Javanese variety of neanderthal, appearing later in time than Pithecanthropus erectus.

7.3.2 First Find at Sangiran

Gradually, the history of human ancestors in Java seemed to be clearing up, but more work was needed. in 1934, von Koenigswald journeyed to Sangiran, a site west of trinil on the Solo River. He took with him several Javanese workers, including his trained collector, Atma, who also served as von Koenigswald’s cook and laundryman in the field.

Von Koenigswald (1956, p. 88) wrote: “there was great rejoicing in the kampong over our arrival. the men gathered all the jaws and teeth they could lay hands on and offered to sell them to us. even the women and girls, who are generally so retiring, took part.” When one considers that most of the finds attributed to von Koenigswald were actually made by local villagers or native collectors, who were paid by the piece in most cases, the scene described cannot but cause some degree of uneasiness.

At the end of 1935, because of funding cutbacks in the midst of the worldwide economic depression, von Koenigswald’s position with Java’s Geological Survey was terminated. Undeterred, von Koenigswald kept his servant Atma and others working at Sangiran, financing their activities with contributions from his wife and colleagues in Java.

Uncovered during this period was what appeared to be the fossilized right half of the upper jaw of an adult Pithecanthropus erectus. this fossil jaw from Sangiran is designated S1a in table 7.2 on p. 498. An examination of many reports by von Koenigswald has failed to turn up any description by him of exactly how this specimen was found. But the British researcher K. p. Oakley and his associates stated (Oakley et al. 1975, p. 108) that the fossil was found in 1936 on the surface of exposed lake deposits east of Kalijoso in central Java by collectors employed by von Koenigswald.

Considering that S1a was a surface find, it is surprising that modern authorities (Oakley et al. 1975, p. 109) have concluded that this fossil is of the same Middle to early pleistocene age as the exposed djetis beds where it was found (see Section 7.5.1 for more on the age of the djetis beds). the fact that the S1a upper jaw fragment is fossilized is not a guarantee of any great age, because there is evidence that bone can be fossilized in periods as short as a few hundred years. it might be argued that in the Sangiran region there are no strata younger

than those of the Middle pleistocene Kabuh formation, which lie over the djetis beds of the putjangan formation. And therefore the jaw should be at least Middle pleistocene in age. But the S1a jaw was said to have been found by paid collectors, who may have imported it from almost anywhere.

As we have seen in our discussions of anomalous discoveries made in Argentina and elsewhere, professional scientists sometimes question the credibility and honesty of paid collectors. Boman (Section 5.2.5), for example, said such persons are always suspect. if so, that judgement should also automatically apply to the collectors who found the S1a jaw and other Java Homo erectus fossils, all of which are completely accepted by the scientific community.

A more reasonable approach would be to separately evaluate the qualification of the collectors involved in particular discoveries. Lorenzo Parodi, the collector who worked for c. Ameghino at Miramar, Argentina, it may be recalled, left his discoveries in place for scientists to photograph in situ and excavate, and was not known to have engaged in any kind of deception over the course of a long career.

As we shall see in connection with the subsequent hominid finds reported by von Koenigswald, his Javanese collectors were often implicated in questionable behavior. therefore, we do not really know the exact place of discovery of the S1a jaw reportedly found at Kalijoso in 1936.

in addition, we must keep in mind that scientists themselves are not always honest. We shall explore this subject in some detail in chapter 8, which deals with the infamous piltdown incident.

At this point, an anthropologist might observe that the S1a jaw fragment exhibits the features of Homo erectus, as Pithecanthropus erectus is now known. Hence it must have been deposited at least several hundred thousand years ago, despite the fact that it was found on the surface. But this is reasoning from theory to fact, not from fact to theory. What if there were existing in geologically recent times, or even today, a rare species of hominid having physical features similar to those of Homo erectus? in that case one could not automatically assign a date to a given bone based on the physical features of that bone. in chapter 10 can be found evidence suggesting that a creature like Homo erectus has lived in recent times and in fact may be alive today.

As far as chemical dating of finds such as the S1a jaw is concerned, we discuss this in Sections 7.5.2 and 7.5.3.

We do not insist that the S1a jaw is recent. it might very well be several hundred thousand years old, and we would have no problem with that. What we do object to is the uneven application of standards for evaluating paleoanthropological evidence. In affirming the contemporaneity of the S1a jaw with the Djetis beds, scientists have applied such standards more leniently than they have in denying great antiquity to the anomalous finds discussed in previous chapters.

7.3.3 The Role of the Carnegie Institution

During the difficult year of 1936, in the course of which the fossil jaw discussed above was uncovered, the unemployed von Koenigswald received a remarkable visitor—pierre teilhard de chardin, whom von Koenigswald himself had invited to come and inspect his discoveries in Java. teilhard de chardin, a world-famous archeologist and Jesuit priest, had been working in peking (now Beijing), where he had participated in the peking man excavations at choukoutien (now Zhoukoudian). One reason for his coming to Java was that he desired to establish a link between peking man and Java man.

during his visit to Java, teilhard de chardin advised von Koenigswald to write to John c. Merriam, the president of the carnegie institution (cuenot 1958). von Koenigswald did so, informing Merriam that he was on the verge of making important new Pithecanthropus finds. Teilhard de Chardin, who was personally acquainted with most of the leading paleoanthropologists of the day, also wrote in support. teilhard de chardin’s biographer cuenot (1958, p. 163) stated: “One has the impression of a vast web, of which teilhard held in parts the threads, where he served as a liaison agent, or better still, as chief of staff, able, like a magician, to make American money flow, or at least to channel it for the greatest good of paleontology.”

Merriam responded positively to von Koenigswald’s letter, inviting him to come to philadelphia in March 1937 to attend the Symposium on early Man, sponsored by the carnegie institution. there von Koenigswald joined many of the world’s leading scientists working in the field of human prehistory.

One of the central purposes of the meeting was to form an executive committee for the Carnegie Institution’s financing of paleoanthropological research. Suddenly, the impoverished von Koenigswald found himself appointed a research associate of the carnegie institution and in possession of a large budget.

Considering the critical role played by private foundations in the financing of research in human evolution, it might be valuable at this point to further consider the motives of the foundations and their executives. the carnegie institution and John c. Merriam provide an excellent case study. in chapter 9, we will examine the Rockefeller Foundation’s role in financing the excavation of Peking man.

the carnegie institution was founded in January 1902 in Washington, d.c., and a revised charter approved by congress became effective in 1904. the institution was governed by a board of 24 trustees, with an executive committee meeting throughout the year, and was organized into 12 departments of scientific investigation, including experimental evolution. the institution also funded the Mt. Wilson Observatory, where the first systematic research leading to the idea that we live in an expanding universe was conducted. thus the carnegie institution was actively involved in two areas, namely evolution and the big bang universe, that lie at the heart of the scientific cosmological vision that has replaced earlier religiously inspired cosmologies.

It is significant that for Andrew Carnegie and others like him, the impulse to charity, traditionally directed toward social welfare, religion, hospitals, and general education, was now being channeled into scientific research, laboratories, and observatories. This reflected the dominant position that science and its world view, including evolution, were coming to occupy in society, particularly within the minds of its wealthiest and most influential members, many of whom saw science as the best hope for human progress.

John c. Merriam, president of the carnegie institution, believed that science had “contributed very largely to the building of basic philosophies and beliefs” (1938, p. 2531), and his support for von Koenigswald’s fossil-hunting expeditions in Java should be seen in this context. A foundation like the carnegie Institution had the means to use science to influence philosophy and belief by selectively funding certain areas of research and publicizing the results. “The number of matters which might be investigated is infinite,” wrote Merriam (1938, p. 2507). “But it is expedient in each period to consider what questions may have largest use in furtherance of knowledge for the benefit to mankind at that particular time.”

The question of human evolution satisfied this requirement. “Having spent a considerable part of my life in advancing studies on the history of life,” said Merriam (1938, p. 2529), “i have been thoroughly saturated with the idea that evolution, or the principle of continuing growth and development, constitutes one of the most important truths obtained from all knowledge.”

By training a paleontologist, Merriam was also by faith a christian. But his Christianity definitely took a back seat to his science. “My first contact with science,” Merriam (1938, pp. 2041–2042) recalled in a 1931 speech, “was when i came home from grammar school to report to my mother that the teacher had talked to us for fifteen minutes about the idea that the days of creation described in Genesis were long periods of creation and not the days of twenty-four hours. My mother and i held a consultation—she being a Scotch presbyterian— and agreed that this was rank heresy. But a seed had been sown. i have been backing away from that position through subsequent decades. I realize now that the elements of science, so far as creation is concerned, represent the uncontaminated and unmodified record of what the Creator did.”

Having dispensed with scriptural accounts of creation, Merriam managed to turn darwinian evolution into a kind of religion. At a convocation address at the George Washington University in 1924, Merriam (1938, p. 1956) said of evolution, “there is nothing contributing to the support of our lives in a spiritual sense that seems so clearly indispensable as that which makes us look forward to continuing growth or improvement.”

He held that science would give man the opportunity to take on a godlike role in guiding that future development. “Research is the means by which man will assist in his own further evolution,” said Merriam (1938, pp. 2541–2542) in a 1925 address to the carnegie institution’s Board of trustees. He went on to say: “i believe that if he [man] had open to him a choice between further evolution directed by some Being distant from us, which would merely carry him along with the current; or as an alternative could choose a situation in which that outside power would fix the laws and permit him to use them, man would say, ‘I prefer to assume some responsibility in this scheme.’”

“According to the ancient story,” Merriam continued, “man was driven from the Garden of eden lest he might learn too much; he was banished so that he might become master of himself. A flaming sword was placed at the east gate, and he was ordered to work, to till the ground, until he could come to know the value of his strength. He is now learning to plough the fields about him, shaping his life in accordance with the laws of nature. in some distant age a book may be written in which it will be stated that man came at last to a stage where he returned to the Garden, and at the east gate seized the flaming sword, the sword that symbolized control, to carry it as a torch guiding him to the tree of life.” Seizing the flaming sword and marching to take control of the tree of life? One wonders if there would be enough room in eden for both God and a hardcharging scientific superachiever like Merriam.

7.3.4 Back to Java

Armed with carnegie grant money, von Koenigswald returned to Java in June of 1937. immediately upon his arrival, he hired hundreds of natives and sent them out in force to find more fossils.

Meanwhile, in the course of looking through baskets of fossils gathered at Sangiran during his absence, von Koenigswald came upon a large, fossilized, lower right jaw fragment (S1b in table 7.2, p. 498). von Koenigswald stated (1940a, p. 142) that the fossil had been lying on the surface at the time it was discovered. von Koenigswald then asked his native collectors to specify the exact location at which it was discovered, and they informed him that it was found at a place where the djetis beds of the putjangan formation are exposed. von Koenigswald searched this area, but he stated that he was unable to locate the exact spot at which this fossil was said to have been found.

Adhering to the S1b jaw fragment was a fine-grained conglomerate, the presence of which caused von Koenigswald (1937, p. 884) to conclude that the fossil had originally been embedded in the Kabuh formation, which lies above the putjangan formation. it is in the early Middle pleistocene trinil beds of the Kabuh formation that dubois reported he found the original Pithecanthropus specimens. two years later, in 1939, after the conglomerate surrounding the S1b jaw fragment had been removed in the Cenozoic Research Laboratory in Peking, it was observed that the fossil had fine cracks in it. Such cracks are typically reported on specimens that have been embedded in a clayey layer, such as one would find in the Putjangan formation. Also, this fossil was more heavily fossilized than most bones found in the Kabuh formation. in light of these new facts, von Koenigswald (1940a, p. 142) reversed himself and declared that the S1b jaw must have come from the putjangan formation, considered early Middle pleistocene or late early pleistocene (Section 7.5.1).

A radically different opinion was expressed by dubois, who thought that the jaw belonged to Homo soloensis (the Javanese neanderthal) and therefore was only about 100,000 years old (von Koenigswald 1956, p. 93). von Koenigswald countered that such recent layers were not present at Sangiran.

But the fact remains that the jaw was said to have been discovered by native collectors on the surface at a location the collectors themselves could not clearly remember, and thus we do not know for sure where the jaw was originally situated. it is apparent from the above discussion that the actual age of the jaw is unknown.

At Modjokerto, in 1936, one of von Koenigswald’s native collectors, Andojo, discovered the skullcap of a young hominid and labeled it an orangutan. On unpacking the specimen, von Koenigswald reported that the skull exhibited features that are typically human, and not those of an ape; yet its brain capacity was smaller than that of an anatomically modern human of corresponding age. H. deterra (1943, p. 443) stated that “since the facial part and the base of the skull are missing, its true phylogenetic rank is unknown.” But today most paleoanthropologists believe several features of the skull indicate it belonged to a Homo erectus child.

von Koenigswald, relying on Andojo’s statement that the skull was dug up from a depth of 3 feet at Modjokerto, concluded that the skull was found embedded in the putjangan layers. the real location of this skull was, however, known only by Andojo, because von Koenigswald was not present at the time of the discovery. During the course of most of the Sangiran finds, von Koenigswald remained at Bandung, about 200 miles away, although he would sometimes travel to the fossil beds after being notified of a discovery. Andojo’s credibility is suspect, because as we shall see in the description of the next discovery, the Javanese collectors employed by von Koenigswald were sometimes driven, by a desire for extra profit, to engage in deception and trickery.

in the fall of 1937, one of von Koenigswald’s collectors, Atma, mailed him a temporal bone that apparently belonged to a thick, fossilized, hominid cranium. this specimen (S2 in table 7.2, p. 498) was said to have been discovered near the bank of a river named the Kali tjemoro, at the point where it breaks through the sandstone of the Kabuh formation at Sangiran.

von Koenigswald took the night train to central Java and arrived at the site the next morning. “We mobilized the maximum number of collectors,” stated von Koenigswald (1956, pp. 95–96). “i had brought the fragment back with me, showed it round, and promised 10 cents for every additional piece belonging to the skull. that was a lot of money, for an ordinary tooth brought in only ½ cent or 1 cent. We had to keep the price so low because we were compelled to pay cash for every find; for when a Javanese has found three teeth he just won’t collect any more until these three teeth have been sold. consequently we were forced to buy an enormous mass of broken and worthless dental remains and throw them away in Bandung—if we had left them at Sangiran they would have been offered to us for sale again and again.”

the highly motivated crew quickly turned up the desired skull fragments. von Koenigswald (1947, p. 15) would later recall: “there, on the banks of a small river, nearly dry at that season, lay the fragments of a skull, washed out of the sandstones and conglomerates that contained the trinil fauna. With a whole bunch of excited natives, we crept up the hillside, collecting every bone fragment we could discover. i had promised the sum of ten cents for every fragment belonging to that human skull. But i had underestimated the ‘big-business’ ability of my brown collectors. the result was terrible! Behind my back they broke the larger fragments into pieces in order to increase the number of sales! . . . We collected about 40 fragments, of which 30 belonged to the skull. . . . they formed a fine, nearly complete Pithecanthropus skullcap. Now, at last, we had him!”

How did von Koenigswald know that the fragments found on the surface of a hill really belonged, as he claimed, to the Middle pleistocene Kabuh formation? perhaps the native collectors found a skull elsewhere and broke it apart, sending one piece to von Koenigswald and scattering the rest by the banks of the Kali tjemoro.

von Koenigswald constructed a skull from the 30 fragments he had collected, calling it Pithecanthropus II, and sent a preliminary report to dubois. the skull (S2 in table 7.2, p. 498) was much more complete than the original skullcap found by dubois at trinil. von Koenigswald (1956, pp. 97–99) had always thought that dubois had reconstructed his Pithecanthropus skull with too low a profile, and believed the Pithecanthropus skull fragments he had just found allowed a more humanlike interpretation. dubois, who by this time had concluded his original Pithecanthropus was merely a fossil ape (von Koenigswald 1956, p. 55), disagreed with von Koenigswald’s reconstruction and published an accusation that he had indulged in fakery. He later retracted this indictment and said that the mistakes he saw in von Koenigswald’s reconstruction were probably not deliberate.

But von Koenigswald’s position was gaining support. Franz Weidenreich, supervisor of the peking man excavations at choukoutien, stated (1938, p. 378) in the prestigious journal Nature that von Koenigswald’s new finds had definitely established Pithecanthropus as a human precursor and not a gibbon as claimed by dubois.

Weidenreich journeyed to Java and participated in another discovery, known as Pithecanthropus III (S3 in Table 7.2, p. 498). This find consisted of many skull fragments, adding up to the right parietal bone, part of the left parietal bone, and a small piece of the occipital bone of a juvenile individual. von Koenigswald stated (1940a, p. 102) that most of these fragments were found by his collectors in July 1938 in the southern sector of the Sangiran dome. A few were discovered by himself and Weidenreich in the course of their visit to the site in September 1938. von Koenigswald (1940a) went on to describe the condition of these skull fragments. they were found on the surface, and they were extensively corroded. in fact, von Koenigswald wrote that these pieces of bone must have been lying around on the surface for a long time, because roots of grasses were penetrating a piece of one of the fragments. despite this, von Koenigswald (1940a, p. 103; 1956, p. 101) and Le Gros clark and campbell (1978, p. 94) stated that Pithecanthropus III is from the Kabuh formation. But considering that this specimen was discovered on the surface, there is room to doubt this. in his 1956 book Meeting Prehistoric Man, von Koenigswald failed to mention that the Pithecanthropus III skull was found on the surface, thus misleading the reader into accepting it as strong evidence for a missing link in the Middle pleistocene.

7.3.5 A Meeting in Peking

In January 1939, von Koenigswald and Weidenreich met at the Cenozoic Research Laboratory in peking to directly compare fossils of Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, as Peking man was known in scientific circles. Peking man was represented by some fairly complete skulls with features thought to be markedly human. the humanlike nature of peking man was further supported by the presence of crude stone implements and evidence of fire in the excavation at choukoutien. All of this indicated Sinanthropus was much more than an ape. At their meeting, von Koenigswald and Weidenreich agreed that Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus were anatomically very closely related. So if peking man was a distant ancestor of the human type, then so was Java man. von Koenigswald (1956, pp. 47– 48) wrote: “the cranial curve of peking man was exactly similar to that of the disputed Javanese Pithecanthropus. Since there could be no doubt that the peking man, despite all his primitive characteristics, was genuinely human, practically all Dubois’s opponents were convinced by this new find that Pithecanthropus, too, must have been human.”

Von Koenigswald’s characterization of Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus as “genuinely human” refers only to certain departures from apelike morphology in the direction of humanlike morphology. But such departures do not require one to conclude that modern humans descended from Pithecanthropus or Sinanthropus. Furthermore, one cannot rule out the possibility that humans of modern type existed contemporaneously with or previous to Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus. As we have seen, there is much evidence demonstrating this latter possibility.

concerning the alleged identity of Pithecanthropus and Sinanthropus, dubois himself was not convinced. “the discovery of peking man might have been expected to represent a great triumph for dubois, who had up till then been exerting every ounce of his authority to convince the world that the disputed [Java man] fossil was human,” stated von Koenigswald (1956, p. 55). “curiously enough, this was not how dubois saw it. till the end of his life [in 1940] he refused to recognize any affinity between Sinanthropus and his Pithecanthropus. He described Sinanthropus as a degenerate neanderthaler, and suddenly decided that his own find must be ascribed to a gibbon-like ape.”

While in peking, von Koenigswald received from his collector Rusman a new Pithecanthropus fossil, a thickly encrusted upper jaw. Later von Koenigswald’s Javanese servants sent from the same site another piece of rock that appeared to match the broken piece of rock in which the jaw had been embedded. in this new piece of rock were found the fragments of the rear part of a cranium. Although the cranium had no direct connection with the upper jaw, both were attributed to the same individual, Pithecanthropus IV (von Koenigswald 1956, pp. 105–106; Oakley et al. 1975, p. 109).

von Koenigswald said that the jaw was found in the upper layer of the Black clay stratum of the putjangan formation at Sangiran ( Weidenreich 1945, p. 14). Although von Koenigswald reported on this find in five different publications (1939 pp. 926 –929, with Weidenreich as coauthor; 1940a, p. 52; 1947, p. 48; 1949a, p. 92; 1956, pp. 105–111), in none of these did he state the exact location in the stratum of the jaw or the rear braincase. He did not state if the stratum was undisturbed or at what depth the fossils (S4 in table 7.2, p. 498) were found.

considering the importance of these discoveries, the reader is entitled to the detailed stratigraphic information that should have been provided.

One can simply imagine what might have happened if the discovery had been a fossil skull of the modern human type. Authorities such as Hrdlicka would have pointed out that it had been discovered by a native collector and not a trained scientist, that the exact location of its discovery was unknown, and that there was, therefore, sufficient reason to reject the find. But sloppiness that would be fatal to an anomalous find is easily tolerated in the case of a find that fits in nicely with accepted ideas about human evolution.

7.3.6 Weidenreich’s Reconstruction

in 1945, Weidenreich used the S1b lower jaw, found in 1936 near Kalijoso, and the upper jaw and rear braincase of the so-called Pithecanthropus IV individual (S4) to put together his famous Pithecanthropus robustus reconstruction. this was surely a strange mix. von Koenigswald and more recent authors such as Le Gros clark and campbell (1978) uncritically accepted that the rear braincase and upper jaw belonged to the same individual although no empirical data was ever brought forward to prove this. the S1b lower jaw was found at a different site. Furthermore, in

Weidenreich’s Pithecanthropus robustus reconstruction, there were no fossils for the front half of the cranium and the upper part of the face. von Koenigswald (1949a, p. 92) concluded that Weidenreich modeled the facial part of the Pithecanthropus robustus skull after the peking man fossils and the front half of the cranium after dubois’s original Pithecanthropus skullcap. despite the considerable guesswork involved with this reconstruction (Figure 7.4) many paleoanthropologists have accepted it as valid.

Figure 7.4. Reconstruction of the Java man (Pithecanthropus robustus) skull by Franz Weidenreich (1945, plate 4). the only bone fragments used in the reconstruction comprised the rear part of the cranium and the upper and lower jaws. these were from different sites.

thirty years later, however, Grover S. Krantz presented a very convincing case that the upper jaw used in the reconstruction did not belong to the same individual as the rear part of the skull.

After making detailed measurements, Krantz (1975, pp. 363–365) concluded that the upper jaw (palate) was much too wide to fit with the rear braincase. Weidenreich appears to have realized this back in 1945 when he did the reconstruction. Krantz noted that Weidenreich artificially spread apart two key bones of the rear braincase (called the mandibular fossae) “without any explanation.” Krantz (1975, p. 366) stated that the mandibular fossae, even after Weidenreich spread them apart, were nevertheless “much too close together to accommodate the palate breadth.”

It is interesting that in the same volume in which Krantz’s report appeared, von Koenigswald stated that the width of the palate as Krantz had measured it—94 millimeters—was incorrect (tuttle 1975, p. 377). von Koenigswald arrived at a width narrower than 94 millimeters, which he said allowed the palate to perfectly fit the braincase. But following von Koenigswald’s statement came a statement by Krantz saying that his own measurement of the palate width was correct and was identical to Weidenreich’s 1945 measurement of 94 millimeters. According to Krantz, before the upper jaw was discovered it was broken through the socket of the first left incisor; then the greater part of its left half was shifted toward the midline and fossilized in that position. Krantz reported that both he (working in the 1970s) and Weidenreich (working in 1945) realized this and moved the left part of this upper jaw back to its original position. Krantz pointed out that von Koenigswald apparently measured the fossil in its distorted condition (without moving the left half back) and that von Koenigswald’s measurement was therefore wrong. Following Krantz’s statement there was no published reply by von Koenigswald. it seems, therefore, that von Koenigswald was wrong in his measurement and that Krantz was correct. This supports Krantz’s contention that the upper jaw does not belong to the same individual as the rear braincase.

According to Krantz, the teeth in the upper jaw were positioned like those in the upper jaw of an ape such as an orangutan. Krantz (1975, p. 369) therefore proposed “that the palate previously related to the Javan Homo erectus skull iv should be removed from this association” and “assigned to the genus Pongo, large Asiatic apes.” If Krantz’s assessment is correct, then both Weidenreich and von Koenigswald were apparently unable to distinguish an ape palate from a Homo erectus palate. this is especially damaging to Weidenreich’s skull reconstruction, which included the questionable palate.

7.3.7 More Discoveries by Von Koenigswald

West of trinil there is an area where the Kabuh formation comes to the surface. At this location primitive stone tools are also present. von Koenigswald (1940b) stated that in this area a fragment of a heavy mandible (S5 in table 7.2, p. 498) came to light in 1939.

By now the reader may be hoping that there might be a detailed report of the strata in which this fossil was discovered so that a proper date can be assigned to it. Such hopes must remain unfulfilled in this case. Von Koenigswald (1949b, p. 110) stated explicitly that this fossil was called “Pithecanthropus dubius” because its original position was unknown. in a later report, von Koenigswald (1968a, p. 102) flatly admitted that this fossil was a surface find. He thought that it must originally have come from the Black clay stratum of the putjangan formation, but he was not sure. therefore, this fossil cannot be assigned to a particular point in geological time, which makes it next to useless as paleoanthropological evidence.

in 1941, one of von Koenigswald’s native collectors, at Sangiran, sent to him, at Bandung, a fragment of a gigantic lower jaw (S6 in table 7.2, p. 498). According to von Koenigswald (1956, p. 111), it displayed the unmistakable features of a human ancestor’s jaw. He named the jaw’s owner Meganthropus palaeojavanicus (“giant man of ancient Java”) because the jaw was twice the size of a typical modern human jaw.

von Koenigswald believed that the S6 jaw was discovered in the putjangan formation near the site where the Modjokerto child’s skull was found. A careful search of original reports has not revealed a description of the exact location at which the S6 jaw was found, or who discovered it. if von Koenigswald did report the exact circumstances of this find then it is a well-kept secret. He discussed Meganthropus in at least three reports (von Koenigswald 1956, pp. 111–113; 1949a, p. 92; 1949b, p. 107); however, in none of these did he inform the reader of the details of the fossil’s original location. All he said was that it came from the putjangan formation, but no further information was supplied. Hence all we really know for certain is that some unnamed collector mailed a jaw fragment to von Koenigswald. Its age, from a strictly scientific standpoint, remains a mystery.

Meganthropus, in the opinion of von Koenigswald, was a giant offshoot from the main line of human evolution. Von Koenigswald had also found some large humanlike fossil teeth, which he attributed to an even larger creature called Gigantopithecus. According to von Koenigswald, Gigantopithecus was a large and relatively recent ape. But Weidenreich, after examining the Meganthropus jaws and the Gigantopithecus teeth, came up with another theory. He proposed that both creatures were direct human ancestors. According to Weidenreich, Homo sapiens evolved from Gigantopithecus by way of Meganthropus and Pithecanthropus (Simons and ettel 1970, p. 77). each species was smaller than the next. Most modern authorities, however, consider Gigantopithecus to be a variety of ape, living in the Middle to early pleistocene, and not directly related to humans. the Meganthropus jaws are now thought to be much more like those of Java man (Homo erectus) than von Koenigswald originally believed. Some researchers, however, have suggested that Meganthropus fossils might be classified as Australopithecus (Jacob 1973, p. 475). this is intriguing, because according to standard opinion, Australopithecus never left its African home.

7.4 Later Discoveries In Java

Meganthropus was the last major discovery reported by von Koenigswald, but the search for more bones of Java man has continued up to the present. We shall now discuss the most important of the later finds, which are uniformly accepted as evidence for Homo erectus in the Javanese Middle and early pleistocene ( Le Gros clark and campbell 1978, p. 94). the discoveries were all made in the Sangiran region.

in September 1952, p. Marks, a member of the science faculty at the University of indonesia at Bandung, happened to pass by the fossil beds at Sangiran, at which time a local villager handed him a large fragment of a heavily fossilized mandible (S8 in Table 7.2, p. 498). Later, Marks analyzed this mandible and concluded it belonged to von Koenigswald’s Meganthropus. Marks (1953, p. 26) stated that the jaw fragment was found lying loose on the surface north of the village of Glagahombo, on a slope of strongly cemented conglomerate, consisting mainly of small pebbles of volcanic origin. numerous fragments of vertebrate bones were present within this conglomerate. Marks noted that the material clinging to the S8 jaw fragment was of the same type as the conglomerate of the slope. He added, however, that it was not possible “to collect associated vertebrate remains of stratigraphical value.” From the information provided by Marks in his report, one cannot assign a specific age to this fossil. In light of this, it is surprising that Marks advocated that this fossil was from the Middle pleistocene Kabuh formation and that this judgement is accepted without question by other modern authorities.

in 1960, near the village of Mlandingan in the vicinity of Sangiran, a villager discovered a highly fossilized right mandible (S9 in Table 7.2, p. 498) on the surface of a hill slope. the bones of other vertebrates had also been discovered in this area. the S9 fossil consisted of the right half of the jaw and contained five teeth. T. Jacob, of the department of physical anthropology at Gadjah Madah University in Jogjakarta, indonesia, proposed that the S9 mandible belonged to one of the species of Pithecanthropus.

this right mandible was incrusted by a matrix containing foraminifera (small marine organisms) that S. Sartono (1974) reported were exactly the same as the foraminifera of the putjangan formation, which is considered older than the Middle pleistocene Kabuh formation (Section 7.5.1).

Jacob (1964) reported that in August 1963 an indonesian farmer discovered fragments of a fossilized skull “in the Sangiran dome area while working in the field.” When assembled, these skull fragments formed what appeared to be a skull (S10 in table 7.2, p. 498) similar to the type that is designated as Homo erectus.

Although Jacob stated that this skullcap was deposited in the Kabuh formation during the Middle pleistocene, he gave no more information than “a farmer discovered fragments of a fossil skull in the Sangiran dome area while working in the field.” Jacob (1964) did not state the exact position of the fragments when found. All we really know is that a farmer discovered some fossil skull fragments that were most likely on or close to the surface.

There were two other reports on the S10 find: Sartono (1964) and Jacob (1966). the report by Sartono (1964, p. 3) provided a diagram of the beds of the Kabuh formation and the overlying notopuro beds. the S10 skull was assigned to layer 8 in the Kabuh formation. in the general area of the discovery, layer 8 was at the surface. Sartono (1964) did not tell whether the skull was found lying loose on the ground or firmly embedded in layer 8.

Jacob (1966, p. 244) reported that the fragments making up the S10 skull were discovered in two successive months. The first group of fragments was found in July 1963 and was reported by Sartono (1964). the second group was found in August 1963 and was reported in Jacob (1964). Unfortunately, Jacob (1966) did not provide any more definite information about the location and situation of either group of fragments at the time of their discovery than can be found in Sartono (1964) or in his own earlier report (Jacob 1964).

Jacob (1973, p. 476) made this interesting remark about Sangiran, where the S10 find and all the other finds discussed in this section were made: “The site seems to be still promising, but presents special problems. . . . this is mainly due to the site being inhabited by people, many of whom are collectors who had been trained in identifying important fossils. chief collectors always try to get the most out of the primate fossils found accidentally by primary discoverers (Jacob 1964). In addition, they may not report the exact site of the find, lest they lose one potential source of income. Occasionally, they may not sell all the fragments found on the first purchase, but try to keep a few pieces to sell at a higher price at a later opportunity.”

Concerning another find in the Sangiran region, S. Sartono (1967) stated that on January 30, 1965 pieces of a skullcap were obtained by one of his collectors (unnamed) from a local villager, who was also not named. the fossils came into Sartono’s possession towards the end of February 1965. this discovery consisted of 44 fragments of a skullcap, which were “collected all around the site of the skull in the field.” After restoration, the skullcap (S12 in Table 7.2, p. 498) consisted of both parietals, the left temporal, part of the left mastoid bone, a large part of the occipital bone, and a small part of the frontal bone. The S12 skull exhibited the features typical of Homo erectus.

the pieces of this skullcap were found on the surface (Sartono 1967, p. 85) of a slope southwest of the village of putjung. At this point, the Kabuh formation was exposed. Sartono stated that the skull was deposited at the same time as the early Middle pleistocene Kabuh beds. Modern authorities have uncritically accepted Sartono’s age estimate for the S12 skull. But if the skull had been of modern morphology, one suspects that the same authorities would have used the fact that it was found on the surface to rule out a Middle pleistocene age for it.

On July 20, 1969, one of Sartono’s collectors gave him a small fragment of an upper jaw that contained two upper left premolars (S15 in table 7.2, p. 498). From the jaw’s dimensions and shape, Sartono concluded that it belonged to a member of the species Pithecanthropus modjokertensis. But modern authorities tend to classify all the Pithecanthropus species of earlier researchers (P. erectus, P. modjokertensis, P. soloensis, and P. robustus) as Homo erectus.

the S15 jaw was said to have been found lying loose on the surface near ngrejeng village on the northern part of the Sangiran dome. the rock matrix that incrusted it consisted of a grey clay stone. Because the putjangan beds at this point also have a layer of grey clay stone, Sartono (1974) assumed that this specimen was originally embedded in that layer. Sartono and most other scientists believed the putjangan formation to be older than the Middle pleistocene Kabuh formation.

there are several reasons why one should be hesitant to accept that the S15 jaw was contemporaneous with the putjangan formation. First, the credibility of the collector is unknown. He might have obtained this bone from any place where there is a grey clay stone. Second, even if S15 was discovered at the site reported above, because it was found on the surface it may not have been originally a part of the putjangan beds at this point. Holmes or Hrdlicka, confronted with evidence for anatomically modern human beings in a situation like this, would probably have proclaimed that the fossil had been recently introduced. As always, our point is that a double standard should not be employed in the evaluation of paleoanthropological evidence—an impossibly strict standard for anomalous evidence and an exceedingly lenient standard for acceptable evidence.

Sartono (1972) reported that on September 13, 1969, Mr. towikromo, a resident of the village of putjung, accidentally discovered a fossil hominid skull when his plow broke through its crest. According to Sartono (1972, p. 124), the skull (S17 in table 7.2, p. 498) had a low vault.

there are several aspects of Sartono’s 1972 report that seem unclear. Sartono stated that Mr. towikromo was using an iron tool for cultivation of his land when his tool contacted the skull. Sartono also stated explicitly that the skull was embedded in the Kabuh beds, which are here made of sandstone. Sartono (1972, p. 124) said: “this sandstone forms the base of the blind valley and contains the skull.”

it does not seem probable that the farmer was plowing sandstone. perhaps the lower part of the skull was embedded in the very topmost layer of the Kabuh sandstone, and the upper part of the skull was projecting up into a thin, recently deposited layer of soil that was being cultivated. this may be true, but Sartono (1972) did not state this in his report. It is also not clear just how firmly the skull was embedded in the sandstone layer. perhaps it belonged entirely to a recent soil layer. We must bear in mind that Sartono did not find this skull himself. It is therefore quite possible that it was not firmly embedded in the Kabuh sandstone.

in order to clear up these uncertainties in Sartono’s 1972 report, letters were written in 1985 to both him and to t. Jacob for further information about this and several other important discoveries reported by them from Java. no answers were received. One can easily find dozens of popular books describing Homo erectus and how this hominid lived between 0.5 and 2 million years ago in Java, but finding a report describing how a particular fossil was situated when discovered is often quite difficult. Many of the popular books do not describe the original situation of the fossil. nor do they give references to reports by the original discoverer. Sometimes these books do give references to reports. But upon reading these reports, one finds no information about the original position of the fossil. Sometimes the references are to reports in journals that are not easily found even at the libraries of major universities. It is therefore often difficult to obtain information describing the original stratigraphic position of a fossil. this means that the fossil cannot be properly assigned a geological age, and if it cannot be assigned a geological age it cannot be inserted into a proposed evolutionary sequence. nevertheless, this is exactly what has been done.

7.5 Chemical and Radiometric Datingof The Java Homo Erectus Finds

We shall now discuss issues related to the potassium-argon dating of the formations yielding hominid fossils in Java, as well as attempts to date the fossils themselves by various chemical and radiometric methods. See Appendix 1 for general information about these methods.

7.5.1 The Ages of the Kabuh and Putjangan Formations

in the foregoing discussion, we have several times referred to the Kabuh formation and the putjangan formation. the original Pithecanthropus finds of Dubois were from the trinil beds of the Kabuh formation. Some of the subsequent finds by von Koenigswald and later researchers were also assigned to the Kabuh formation. Others were assigned to the djetis beds of the putjangan formation. Many researchers have attempted to establish an age difference between the two formations, placing the Kabuh formation in the Middle pleistocene and the putjangan formation in the early pleistocene.

As we have seen (Section 7.1.5), eugene dubois originally attempted, on faunal grounds, to classify the trinil beds of the Kabuh formation as pliocene (Boule 1923, p. 98), but later researchers have characterized the Trinil fauna as post-villafranchian (Le Gros clark and campbell 1978, p. 91) or Middle pleistocene (Hooijer 1951, p. 273; 1956, p. 5).

the trinil beds of the Kabuh formation have also been dated by the potassium-argon method. potassium-argon dating relies on the fact that volcanic materials contain potassium 40, which decays into the gas argon 40. the argon gas remains trapped in crystals of volcanic material. By comparing the ratios of potassium 40 and argon 40 gas in a sample, one can date volcanic materials (for a fuller discussion of potassium-argon dating, see Section 11.6.5.1). Basalt at Mount Muria, from a layer above the Pithecanthropus erectus level of the trinil beds, yielded an age of 500,000 years, while tektites (pieces of glass produced by meteors) from the trinil beds yielded potassium-argon dates of 710,000 years (von Koenigswald 1968b, p. 201; Jacob 1973, p. 477). Further potassium-argon tests by G. H. curtis (Jacob 1973, p. 477) on pumice from trinil beds at tanjung and putjung, where the S10 and S12 fossils were found, gave similar ages. Jacob (1973, p. 477) said the average for the above four dates for the trinil beds is

830,000 years. this would put the trinil beds in the early Middle pleistocene.

As far as the Putjangan formation is concerned, it was originally classified as early pleistocene on faunal grounds by von Koenigswald. But d. A. Hooijer (1956) objected to this. He pointed out that both the trinil beds of the Kabuh formation and the djetis beds of the putjangan formation share fossil species characteristic of the Stegodon-Ailuropoda mammalian fauna of southern china, generally recognized as Middle Pleistocene (Hooijer 1956, p. 7).

According to Hooijer (1956, p. 8), von Koenigswald principally employed molluscan stratigraphy in assigning an early pleistocene age to the djetis beds. But Hooijer (1956, p. 9), after citing authorities on Javan molluscs, stated: “there is no reason to attach greater importance to the mollusks than to certain mammalian genera of long standing in establishing pleistocene correlations.” Hooijer (1956, p. 9) concluded that the trinil and djetis beds were of roughly the same Middle pleistocene age.

Attempts were later made to establish the geological age of the djetis beds using the potassium-argon dating method. the djetis beds of the putjangan formation near Modjokerto yielded an early pleistocene potassium-argon date of about 1.9 million years (Jacob 1973, p. 477; Jacob and curtis 1971; Jacob 1972).

The date of 1.9 million years is significant for the following reasons. As we have seen, many Homo erectus fossils (previously designated Pithecanthropus and Meganthropus) have been assigned to the djetis beds. if these fossils are given an age of 1.9 million years, this makes them older than the oldest African Homo erectus finds, which are about 1.6 million years old (Brown et al. 1985, p. 788). According to standard views, Homo erectus evolved in Africa and did not migrate out of Africa until about 1 million years ago.

Also, some researchers have suggested that von Koenigswald’s Meganthropus might be classified as Australopithecus (Jacob 1973, p. 475; Jacob and curtis 1971). if one accepts this opinion, this means that Javan representatives of Australopithecus arrived from Africa before 1.9 million years ago or that Australopithecus evolved separately in Java. Both hypotheses are in conflict with standard views on human evolution.

it should be kept in mind, however, that the potassium-argon technique that gave the 1.9-million-year date is not any more reliable than the other dating techniques we discuss in Appendix 1. Jacob and curtis (1971), who attempted to date most of the hominid sites in Java, found “it has been difficult to obtain meaningful dates from most samples.” In other words, dates were obtained, but they deviated so greatly from what was expected that Jacob and curtis (1971) had to attribute the unsatisfactory results to “contaminants.”

Moveover, according to nilsson (1983, p. 329): “A much lower [potassiumargon] date for the djetis Beds, less than 1 million years, is indicated by later studies (Bartstra 1978).” this agrees with Hooijer’s conclusion that the djetis beds are, like the trinil beds, early Middle pleistocene. Finally, M. H. day and T. I. Molleson (1973, p. 147) reported that fluorine content “analyses of bones from both the djetis and the trinil faunas at Sangiran showed that it was not possible to distinguish, analytically, the two assemblages at this site.”

7.5.2 Chemical Dating of the Trinil Femurs

in Section 7.1.8, we learned that the trinil femurs are indistinguishable from those of modern humans and distinct from those of Homo erectus. this has led some to suggest that the trinil femurs do not belong with the Pithecanthropus skull and were perhaps mixed into the early Middle pleistocene trinil bone bed from higher levels (day and Molleson 1973, p. 152). Another possibility is that anatomically modern humans were living alongside ape-man-like creatures during the early Middle pleistocene in Java. in light of the evidence presented in this book, this would not be out of the question.

The fluorine content test has often been used to determine if bones from the same site are of the same age. Bones absorb fluorine from groundwaters, and thus if bones contain similar percentages of fluorine (relative to the bones’ phosphate content) this suggests such bones have been buried for the same amount of time.

M. H. Day and T. I. Molleson (1973) analyzed the Trinil skullcap and femurs and found they contained roughly the same ratio of fluorine to phosphate. Middle Pleistocene mammalian fossils at Trinil contained a fluorine-to-phosphate ratio similar to that of the skullcap and femurs. day and Molleson (1973, p. 146) stated that their results (table 7.1) “apparently indicated the contemporaneity of the calotte and femora with the trinil fauna.”

if the trinil femurs are distinct from those of Homo erectus and identical to those of Homo sapiens sapiens, as day and Molleson (1973, p. 128) reported, then the fluorine content of the femurs is consistent with the view that anatomically modern humans existed in Java during the early Middle pleistocene, about

800,000 years ago.

day and Molleson (1973, p. 147) suggested that Holocene bones from the Trinil site might, like the Java man fossils, also have fluorine-to-phosphate ratios similar to those of the Middle Pleistocene animal bones, making the fluorine test useless here. in discussing the La denise human bones (Appendix 2), Oakley pointed out that the rate of fluorine absorption in volcanic areas, such as Java, tends to be quite erratic, allowing bones of widely differing ages to have similar fluorine contents. This could not be directly demonstrated at the Trinil site, because there only the Middle pleistocene beds contain fossils.

day and Molleson (1973, p. 148) showed that Holocene and Late pleistocene beds at other sites in Java contained bones with fluorine-to-phosphate ratios similar to those of the trinil bones (table 7.1). But they admitted (day and Molleson 1973, p. 144) that the fluorine-to-phosphate ratios of bones from other sites “would not be directly comparable” with those of bones from the trinil site. This is because the fluorine absorption rate of bone depends upon factors that can vary from site to site. Such factors include the groundwater’s fluorine content, the groundwater’s rate of flow, the nature of the sediments, and the type of bone.

Therefore, the fluorine content test results reported by Day and Molleson remain consistent with (but are not proof of) an early Middle pleistocene age of about 800,000 years for the anatomically modern human trinil femurs.

A nitrogen content test was also performed on the trinil bones. dubois had boiled the skullcap and the first femur in glue. Day and Molleson (1973, p. 147) attempted to correct for this by “pre-treating the samples in order to remove soluble nitrogen before analysis.” Results showed that all of the trinil bones listed in table 7.1 had very little nitrogen left in them. this is consistent with all of the bones being of the same early Middle pleistocene age, although day and Molleson (1973, p. 148) did report that nitrogen in bone is lost so rapidly in Java that even Holocene bones often have no nitrogen. the uranium contents of the Trinil hominid bones and fauna were all almost zero, again consistent with (although not proof of ) their being of the same early Middle pleistocene age.

this data is from day and Molleson (1973, pp. 147–148). the figures represent the ratio of fluorine (F) to phosphate (P2O5) in the bones.

7.5.3 Uranium Content Testing of the Sangiran Fossils

In our discussion of the Sangiran hominid finds reported by von Koenigswald (Section 7.3) and later researchers (Section 7.4), we learned that almost all occurred on the surface. We suggested that this made their real age uncertain.

Some might infer a Middle or early pleistocene date for the Sangiran fossils on the basis of their equivalent U3O8 (uranium oxide) content. For example, the S1a upper jaw discovered in 1936 has an equivalent uranium content of 25 parts per million (ppm), somewhat less than that of 63 ppm for a Cervus (deer) antler from the same general region (Oakley et al. 1975, p. 109).

Sangiran 1a (S1a) was found on the surface, and von Koenigswald simply assumed it weathered out of the putjangan formation. therefore, we are not able to measure the concentration of uranium, either in the groundwater or in other fossils, at the precise location where Sangiran 1a, if in fact from the putjangan formation, lay buried. if we were able to compare the uranium contents of the S1a jaw and other bones from the same spot and found them similar, that would be consistent with, although not proof of, the view that they were of the same age.

But lacking such evidence, the reported uranium content for the S1a jaw itself gives little reason to suggest that the S1a jaw is as old as the putjangan formation. We cannot exclude the possibility that Sangiran 1a is a very young bone that was originally situated in a stratum through which uranium-rich waters percolated.

day and Molleson (1973, p. 148) reported that two Late pleistocene bones from Ngandong had uranium contents of 25 and 30 ppm. These figures are not directly comparable with the uranium content of 25 ppm for the supposedly early Pleistocene Sangiran 1a jaw, but they do demonstrate the difficulty in interpreting the kind of uranium content data reported by Oakley et al. (1975).

the above line of reasoning is also applicable to the other Sangiran hominid fossils, since they were also found on the surface or in other dubious ways.

7.6 Misleading Presentations of The Java Man Evidence

Most books dealing with the subject of human evolution present what appears at first glance to be an impressive weight of evidence for Homo erectus in Java between 0.5 and 2.0 million years ago. One such book is The Fossil Evidence for Human Evolution (1978), by W. e. Le Gros clark, professor of anatomy at Oxford University, and Bernard G. campbell, adjunct professor of anthropology at the University of california at Los Angeles. An impressive table showing discoveries of Homo erectus is presented in their book ( Le Gros clark and campbell 1978, p. 94). these discoveries (table 7.2, p. 498) have been used widely to support the belief that man has evolved from an apelike being.

t3 is the femur found by dubois at a distance of 45 feet from the original cranium, T2. We have already discussed how unjustified it is to assign these two bones to the same individual (Sections 7.1.7 and 7.1.8). Yet ignoring many important facts, Le Gros clark and campbell stated (1978, p. 91) that “the accumulation of evidence speaks so strongly for their natural association that this has become generally accepted.”

t6, t7, t8, and t9 are the femurs found in boxes of fossils in Holland over 30 years after they were originally excavated in Java. Le Gros clark and campbell apparently ignored dubois’s statement that he himself did not excavate them, and that the original location of the femurs was unknown. We may also recall von Koenigswald’s statement that the femurs were from dubois’s general collection, which contained fossils from “various sites and various ages which are very inadequately distinguished because some of the labels got lost.” nevertheless, Le Gros clark and campbell (1978, p. 94) assumed that these femurs came from the trinil beds of the Kabuh formation. But day and Molleson (1973, p. 130) observed: “if the rigorous criteria that are demanded in modern excavations were applied to all of the trinil material subsequent to the calotte and Femur i, it would all be rejected as of doubtful provenance and unknown stratigraphy.”

Fossil M1 and fossils S1a through S6 are those discovered by Javanese native collectors employed by von Koenigswald. Only one of them (M1) was reported to have been discovered buried in the stratum to which it is assigned, and even this report is subject to question. the remaining fossils of the S series are the ones reported by Marks, Sartono, and Jacob, and the majority of these were surface finds by villagers and farmers, who sold the fossils, perhaps by way of middlemen, to the scientists. One familiar with the way these specimens were found can only wonder at the intellectual dishonesty manifest in table 7.2 ( p. 498), which gives the impression that the fossils were all found in strata of definite age.

in our discussion of the Sheguiandah site in canada, where anomalously old stone tools were found by t. e. Lee, we found that an establishment scientist, James B. Griffin, dismissed the discovery because the site did not conform to certain very strict standards (Section 5.4.1.2, pp. 350–352). Griffin and others like him demand to see an intact habitation site, in a clearly defined geological context, complete with stone tools, skeletal remains, signs of deliberate use of fire, remains of animals and plants used as food, and more (1979, p. 44). Otherwise, there is always the chance that an isolated artifact or bone might be intrusive in the layer in which it was found. Griffin felt no hesitation whatsoever in using his criteria to reject as nonsites dozens of places in North American where anomalously old traces of humans had been discovered.

Should not the same strict standards apply in Java? One might argue that Griffin’s requirements were intended for Indian sites in North America and not for Homo erectus sites in other parts of the world. But according to standard opinion, Homo erectus was, like Homo sapiens, a toolmaker and user of fire, as shown by Homo erectus sites in china, Africa, and europe. One might therefore expect to find the same kinds of artifacts and signs of habitation at a Homo erectus site as at a Homo sapiens site. As we have seen, none of the Homo erectus sites in Java (over twenty) conform to Griffin’s criteria and should therefore be classed as nonsites. no cultural remains whatsoever have been found along with the Java Homo erectus fossils, most of which were surface finds.

We regard Griffin’s approach as extreme. However, our main objection is not to the stringency of his requirements but to the fairness of their application. If one decides to employ Griffin’s criteria, one should do so in all similar cases or none at all. Obviously, if one were to universally apply Griffin’s criteria, much of the paleoanthropological evidence currently accepted by scientists, such as the Java Homo erectus evidence, would have to be thrown out. Since that has not been done, we believe Griffin’s strict standards should not be selectively applied to eliminate anomalous discoveries, such as Sheguiandah. Applying the more lenient criteria by which the Java finds have been accepted by the scientific community as evidence for Homo erectus in the Middle pleistocene, the Sheguiandah evidence, and other anomalous evidence, should also be accepted. Although Le Gros clark and campbell (1978, p. 93) noted that Hooijer (1951) had said the real location of many of von Koenigswald’s finds was unknown, they nevertheless accepted that the fossils must have come from Middle or early pleistocene formations, which they designated 0.7–1.3 and 1.3–2.0 million years of age.

this table is reproduced from Le Gros clark and campbell (1978, p. 94). calotte, cranium, and calvaria mean skull, mandible means lower jaw, maxilla means upper jaw, and femora means thighbones.

The ages given by Le Gros clark and campbell, derived from the potassiumargon dates discussed in Section 7.5.1, refer only to the age of the volcanic soils, and not to the bones themselves. potassium-argon dates have meaning only if the bones were found securely in place within or beneath the layers of dated volcanic material. But the vast majority of fossils listed in Table 7.2 were surface finds, rendering their assigned potassium-argon dates meaningless.

concerning the age of 1.3–2.0 million years given by Le Gros clark and campbell for the djetis beds of the putjangan formation, we note that this is based on the potassium-argon date of 1.9 million years reported by Jacob and curtis (1971). But Bartstra (1978) obtained a potassium-argon age of less than 1 million years (Section 7.5.1). As we have seen (Section 7.5.1), other researchers have reported that the fauna of the djetis and trinil beds are quite similar and that the bones have similar fluorine-to-phosphate ratios.

Le Gros clark and campbell (1978, p. 92) concluded that “at this early time there existed in Java hominids with a type of femur indistinguishable from that of Homo sapiens, though all the cranial remains so far found emphasize the extraordinarily primitive characters of the skull and dentition.” All in all, the presentation by Le Gros clark and campbell was quite misleading. they left the reader with the impression that cranial remains found in Java can be definitely associated with the femurs when such is not the case. Furthermore, discoveries in china and Africa, as previously noted (Section 7.1.8), have shown that Homo erectus femurs are different from those collected by dubois in Java.

Judging strictly by the hominid fossil evidence from Java, all we can say is the following. As far as the surface finds are concerned, these are all cranial and dental remains, the morphology of which is primarily apelike with some humanlike features. Because their original stratigraphic position is unknown, these fossils simply indicate the presence in Java, at some unknown time in the past, of a creature with a head displaying some apelike and humanlike features.

The original Pithecanthropus skull (t2) and femur (t3) reported by dubois were found in situ, and thus there is at least some basis for saying they are perhaps as old as the early Middle pleistocene trinil beds of the Kabuh formation. the original position of the other femurs is poorly documented, but they are said to have been excavated from the same trinil beds as t2 and t3 (Section 7.1.7). in any case, the original femur (t3), described as fully human, was not found in close connection with the primitive skull and displays anatomical features that distinguish it from the femur of Homo erectus. there is, therefore, no good reason to connect the skull with the t3 femur or any of the other femurs, all of which are described as identical to those of anatomically modern humans. consequently, the t2 skull and t3 femur can be said to indicate the presence of two kinds of hominids in Java during the early Middle pleistocene—one with an apelike head and the other with legs like those of anatomically modern humans. Following the typical practice of giving a species identification on the basis of partial skeletal remains, we can say that the t3 femur provides evidence for the presence of Homo sapiens sapiens in Java around 800,000 years ago. Up to now, no creature except Homo sapiens sapiens is known to have possessed the kind of femur found in the early Middle pleistocene trinil beds of Java.

The Piltdown Showdown

After Eugene Dubois’s discovery of Java man in the 1890s, the hunt for fossils to fill the evolutionary gaps between ancient apelike hominids and modern Homo sapiens intensified. It was in this era of strong anticipation that a sensational find was made in England—Piltdown man, a creature with a humanlike skull and apelike jaw.

The outlines of the Piltdown story are familiar to both the proponents and opponents of the Darwinian theory of human evolution. The fossils, the first of which were discovered by Charles Dawson in the years 1908–1911, were declared forgeries in the 1950s by scientists of the British Museum. This allowed the critics of Darwinian evolution to challenge the credibility of the scientists who for several decades had placed the Piltdown fossils in evolutionary family trees.

Scientists, on the other hand, were quick to point out that they themselves exposed the fraud. Some sought to identify the forger as Dawson, an eccentric amateur, or Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Catholic priest-paleontologist with mystical ideas about evolution, thus absolving the “real” scientists involved in the discovery.

In one sense, it would be possible to leave the story of Piltdown at this and go on with our survey of paleoanthropological evidence. But a deeper look at Piltdown man and the controversies surrounding him will prove worthwhile, giving us greater insight into how facts relating to human evolution are established and disestablished.

Contrary to the general impression that fossils speak with utmost certainty and conviction, the intricate network of circumstances connected with a paleoanthropological discovery can preclude any simple understanding. Such ambiguity is especially to be expected in the case of a carefully planned forgery, if that is what the Piltdown episode represents. But as a general rule, even “ordinary” paleoanthropological finds are enveloped in multiple layers of uncertainty. As we trace the detailed history of the Piltdown controversy it becomes clear that the line between fact and forgery is often indistinct.

8.1 Dawson Gets a Skull

Sometime around the year 1908, Charles Dawson, a lawyer and amateur anthropologist, noticed that a country road near Piltdown, in Sussex, was being mended with flint gravel. Always on the lookout for flint tools, Dawson inquired from the workmen and learned that the flint came from a pit on a nearby estate, Barkham Manor, owned by Mr. R. Kenward, with whom Dawson was acquainted. Dawson visited the pit and asked two workers there to be on the lookout for any implements or fossils that might turn up. In 1913, Dawson wrote: “Upon one of my subsequent visits to the pit, one of the men handed to me a small portion of an unusually thick human parietal bone. I immediately made a search but could find nothing more. . . . It was not until some years later, in the autumn of 1911, on a visit to the spot, that I picked up, among the rain-washed spoil-heaps of the gravel pit, another and larger piece belonging to the frontal region of the same skull” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 117). Dawson noted that the pit contained pieces of flint much the same in color as the skull fragments.

Dawson was not a simple amateur. He had been elected a Fellow of the Geological Society and had for 30 years contributed specimens to the British Museum as honorary collector (Weiner 1955, p. 83). Furthermore, he had cultivated a close friendship with Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, keeper of the Geological Department at the British Museum and a fellow of the Royal Society. In February 1912, Dawson wrote a letter to Woodward at the British Museum, telling how he had “come across a very old Pleistocene bed . . . which I think is going to be very interesting . . . with part of a thick human skull in it . . . part of a human skull which will rival Homo heidelbergensis” (Bowden 1977, p. 40). Altogether, Dawson had found five pieces of the skull. In order to harden them, he soaked them in a solution of potassium dichromate.

On Saturday, June 2, 1912, Woodward and Dawson, accompanied by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a student at a local Jesuit seminary, began excavations at Piltdown and were rewarded with some new discoveries. On the very first day, they found another piece of skull. More followed. Dawson later wrote: “Apparently the whole or greater portion of the human skull had been shattered by the workmen, who had thrown away the pieces unnoticed. Of these we recovered, from the spoil-heaps, as many fragments as possible. In a somewhat deeper depression of the undisturbed gravel I found the right half of a human mandible. So far as I could judge, guiding myself by the position of a tree 3 or 4 yards away, the spot was identical with that upon which the men were at work when the first portion of the cranium was found several years ago. Dr. Woodward also dug up a small portion of the occipital bone of the skull from within a yard of the point where the jaw was discovered, and at precisely the same level. The jaw appeared to have been broken at the symphysis and abraded, perhaps when it lay fixed in the gravel, and before its complete deposition. The fragments of the cranium show little or no sign of rolling or other abrasion, save an incision at the back of the parietal, probably caused by a workman’s pick” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 121). A total of nine fossil skull pieces were found, five by Dawson alone and an additional four after Woodward joined the excavation.

Dawson and Woodward decided to keep their discovery quiet until such time as they would officially announce it, but news of the fossils circulated privately among scientists with interest in human prehistory. Sir Ray Lankester wrote to J. Reid Moir in 1912: “It seems possible that it is our Pliocene Man—the maker of rostro-carinate flints! At any rate if they say to us ‘you say we call in vague, unknown agencies such as torrents and pressure to produce these flints by natural force, but you are in the same position of calling in a hypothetical man. You have no other evidence that such a man was there!’ Now we can say, ‘Here he is.’ It is wonderful that, after so many years, man’s bones should turn up in a gravel. I do not despair now of you finding a sub-Crag human cranium and lower jaw. You must keep this dark for a month or so yet as the discoverers will not be ready to publish before that lapse of time and more will be found some day in the same place” (Millar 1972, p. 125).

Others also received previews of the coming attraction, among them, Lewis Abbott, an amateur geologist associated with Benjamin Harrison of Ightham. Harrison’s eoliths (Section 3.2) had, like Moir’s Red Crag tools (Section 3.3), convinced many researchers that human fossils would be found in southern England’s Pliocene and Early Pleistocene formations. After consulting Abbott about the Piltdown fossils, Dawson wrote to Woodward, “Abbott is in no doubt. They are man and man all over” (Weiner 1955, p. 100). Sir Arthur Keith also appears to have heard whispers of the Piltdown discoveries, for in a paper presented at the British Association meeting of 1912, he spoke of new fossil evidence for human beings of the modern type in Britain in the Middle Pleistocene, predating the Neanderthals of Europe (Millar 1972, p. 108).

In December 1912, Dawson and Woodward presented their formal report on the fossils they had discovered at the Piltdown site to the Geological Society of London. The report was published in the journal of the Society in 1913. Concerning the geological context of the discovery, Dawson and Woodward (1913, p. 119) stated: “At Piltdown the gravel-bed occurs beneath a few inches of the surface-soil, and varies in thickness from 3 to 5 feet; it is deposited upon an uneven bottom, consisting of hard yellow sandstone of the Tunbridge Wells Sands (Hastings Beds). . . . Portions of the bed are rather finely stratified, and the materials are usually cemented together by iron oxide, so that a pick is often needed to dislodge portions—more especially at one particular horizon near the base. It is in this last mentioned stratum that all the fossil bones and teeth discovered in situ by us have occurred.” They added: “The gravel is situated on a well-defined plateau of large area, lying above the 100-foot contour line, averaging about 120 feet at Piltdown, and lies about 80 feet above the level of the main stream of the Ouse” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 119).

In addition to the human fossils, the 1912 excavations at Piltdown yielded a variety of mammalian fossils. Dawson listed them as: “two small broken pieces of a molar tooth of a rather early Pliocene type of elephant, also a much-rolled cusp of a molar of Mastodon, portions of two teeth of Hippopotamus, and two molar teeth of a Pleistocene beaver.” He added: “In the adjacent field to the west, on the surface close to the hedge dividing it from the gravel bed, we found portions of a red deer’s antler and the tooth of a Pleistocene horse. These may have been thrown away by the workmen, or may have been turned up by a plough. . . . in the spoil heaps occurred part of a deer’s metatarsal. . . . All the specimens are highly mineralized with iron oxide” ( Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 121).

Stone tools were also found: “Among the flints we found several undoubted flint implements, besides numerous ‘Eoliths.’ The workmanship of the former is similar to that of the Chellean or pre-Chellean stage” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 122). In a footnote, Dawson stated: “Father P. Teilhard, S.J., who accompanied us on one occasion, discovered one of the implements in situ in the middle stratum of the gravel-bed, also a portion of the tooth of a Pliocene elephant from the lowest bed” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 122).

The report of Dawson and Woodward (1913, p. 123) concluded: “It is clear that this stratified gravel at Piltdown is of Pleistocene age, but that it contains, in its lowest stratum, animal remains derived from some destroyed Pliocene deposit probably situated not far away, and consisting of worn and broken fragments. These were mixed with fragments of early Pleistocene mammalia in a better state of preservation, and both forms were associated with the human skull and mandible, which show no more wear and tear than they might have received in situ. Associated with these animal remains are ‘Eoliths,’both in a rolled and an unrolled condition; the former are doubtless derived from an older drift and the latter in their present form are of the age of the existing deposit. In the same bed, in only a very slightly higher stratum, occurred a flint implement, the workmanship of which resembles that of implements found at Chelles; and among the spoil-heaps were found others of a similar, though perhaps earlier, stage. From these facts it appears probable that the skull and mandible cannot safely be described as being earlier than the first half of the Pleistocene Epoch. The individual probably lived during a warm cycle in that age.”

In the decades that followed, many scientists agreed with Dawson and Woodward that the Piltdown man fossils belonged to the Early Pleistocene fauna, contemporary with the Piltdown gravels. Others, such as Sir Arthur Keith and A. T. Hopwood thought the Piltdown man fossils belonged with the older Late Pliocene (or Villafranchian) fauna that had apparently been washed into the Piltdown gravels from an older horizon (Oakley and Hoskins 1950, p. 379).

From the beginning, the Piltdown skull was deemed morphologically humanlike, although there was some disagreement about the cranial capacity. In 1913, Woodward estimated the brain capacity at 1,070 cc, perhaps more (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 126). This falls well below the average adult male human capacity of about 1,500 cc. But Sir Arthur Keith later proposed a reconstruction of the skull that yielded a brain capacity of 1,500 cc, matching the average adult male human capacity (Dawson and Woodward 1914, p. 98). Interestingly enough, von Koenigswald (1956, p. 179) said that Keith’s reconstruction actually yielded a brain capacity of 1,370 cc, and Keith said that the original reconstruction by Dawson and Woodward was around 1,200 cc (Dawson and Woodward 1914, p. 98).

On the human appearance of the skull, Woodward stated in 1913: “A detailed examination of the several bones of the skull is interesting, as proving the typically human character of nearly all the features that they exhibit. . . . there cannot have been any prominent or thickened supraorbital ridge, and the missing region above the glabella may be restored on the plan of an ordinary modern human skull” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 127).

Woodward then compared the apelike Piltdown jaw with the Heidelberg jaw, which is larger and heavier than the Piltdown specimen. “When it is remembered that Eoanthropus dawsoni and H. heidelbergensis are almost (if not absolutely) of the same geological age,” he wrote, “we are thus led to the interesting conclusion that at the end of the Pliocene Epoch the representatives of man in Western Europe were already differentiated into widely divergent groups” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, pp. 137–138).

In addition, Woodward observed that the humanlike skull of Piltdown man was quite different from the more recent skulls of Java man and Neanderthal man, with their low foreheads and prominent brow ridges.

Woodward believed that in general the evolution of a species mirrored the growth of an individual of that species from birth to adulthood. For example, infant apes have rounded skulls, with high foreheads and almost no brow ridges, whereas adult apes have low foreheads with prominent brow ridges. Woodward therefore predicted that the skulls of adult apes from the early Tertiary, when discovered, would be much like those of modern infant apes.

“Hence,” stated Woodward, “it seems reasonable to interpret the Piltdown skull as exhibiting a closer resemblance to the skulls of the truly ancestral midTertiary apes than any fossil human skull hitherto found. If this view be accepted, the Piltdown type has gradually become modified into the later Mousterian type [the Neanderthals] by a series of changes similar to those passed through by the early apes as they evolved into the typical modern apes, and corresponding with the stages in the development of the skull in an existing ape-individual. It tends to support the theory that Mousterian man was a degenerate offshoot of early man, and probably became extinct; while surviving man may have arisen directly from the primitive source of which the Piltdown skull provides the first discovered evidence” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, pp. 138–139).

Woodward had come up with his own theory about human evolution, which he thus wanted to support by fossil evidence, however limited and fragmentary. Today, a version of Woodward’s proposed lineage survives in the widely accepted idea that Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis are both descendants of a species called archaic or early Homo sapiens. Not at all widely accepted, but quite close to Woodward’s idea, is Louis Leakey’s proposal that both Homo erectus and the Neanderthals are side branches from the main line of human evolution (Section 11.4.3). But all of these proposed evolutionary lineages ignore the evidence, catalogued in this book, for the presence of anatomically modern humans in periods earlier than the Pleistocene.

8.2 Reactions to PiltDown Man

The notes of the discussion following the presentation made by Dawson and Woodward at the meeting of the Geological Society in December of 1912 stated: “Prof. A. Keith regarded the discovery of fossil human remains just announced as by far the most important ever made in England, and of equal, if not greater consequence than any other discovery yet made, either at home or abroad” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 148).

Sir Ray Lankester, who had earlier written a favorable note to J. Reid Moir about the newly discovered Piltdown man, now expressed an opinion that the jaw and skull might not be from the same individual (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 148). David Waterston, professor of anatomy at King’s College, also thought the jaw did not belong to the skull. He believed it had probably washed down from some older Pliocene stratum along with other mammalian fossils ( Weiner

1955, p. 7; Dawson and Woodward 1913). Waterston felt that connecting the jaw with the skull was akin to linking a chimpanzee’s foot with a human leg (Millar 1972, p. 140). If Waterston was correct, he was confronted with a skull that appeared to be very much like that of a human and was quite possibly from the Early Pleistocene.

So right from the start, some experts were uncomfortable with the seeming incompatibility between the humanlike skull and apelike jaw of the Piltdown man (Figure 8.1). Sir Grafton Eliot Smith, an expert in brain physiology, tried to defuse this doubt. Smith wrote in an appendix to the report by Dawson and Woodward (1913, p. 146) that the cranial cast of Piltdown man “presents more primitive features than any known human brain or cranial cast.” This was quite a remarkable judgement considering the otherwise almost unanimous view that the skull itself was very much like that of a human being. Smith added: “we must consider this as being the most primitive and most simian human brain so far recorded; one, moreover, such as might reasonably have been expected to be associated in one and the same individual with the [apelike] mandible and which so definitely indicates the zoological rank of its original possessor” (Dawson and Woodward 1913, p. 147). But according to modern scientists, the Piltdown skull is a fairly recent Homo sapiens sapiens skull that was planted by a hoaxer. If we accept this, that means Smith, a renowned expert, was seeing simian features where none factually existed.

Figure 8.1. Restoration of the Piltdown skull and jaw by Dawson and Woodward (1914, p. 89).