Editing Java Man (section)

==History of discoveries==
===Background===

[[Charles Darwin]] had argued that [[Recent African origin of modern humans#History of the theory|humanity evolved in Africa]], because this is where [[great ape]]s like [[gorilla]]s and [[chimpanzee]]s lived. Though Darwin's claims have since been vindicated by the [[fossil]] record, they were proposed without any fossil evidence. Other scientific authorities disagreed with him, like [[Charles Lyell]], a [[geologist]], and [[Alfred Russel Wallace]], who thought of a similar [[theory of evolution]] around the same time as Darwin. Because both Lyell and Wallace believed that [[human]]s were more closely related to gibbons or another great ape (the [[orangutan]]s), they identified [[Southeast Asia]] as the cradle of humanity because this is where these apes lived. Dutch anatomist [[Eugène Dubois]] favored the latter theory, and sought to confirm it.{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|pp=58–59}}

===Trinil fossils===
{{multiple image
|align = right
|total_width=420
|image1 = The most ancient skeletal remains of man 1.png
|caption1 = [[Eugène Dubois]]'s [[stratigraphic section]] of the site where he found Java Man. The femur and skullcap appear at level D between a "[[lapilli]]" stratum (C) and a "[[conglomerate (geology)|conglomerate]]" (E).
|image2 = Pithecanthropus-erectus.jpg
|caption2 = The three main fossils of Java Man found in 1891–92: a [[calvaria (skull)|skullcap]], a [[molar (tooth)|molar]], and a [[femur|thighbone]], each seen from two different angles.
}}

In October 1887, Dubois abandoned his academic career and left for the [[Dutch East Indies]] (present-day [[Indonesia]]) to look for the fossilized ancestor of modern man.{{sfnm|1a1=Swisher|1a2=Curtis|1a3=Lewin|1y=2000|1p=58|2a1=de Vos|2y=2004|2p=270}} Having received no funding from the Dutch government for his eccentric endeavor{{spaced ndash}}since no one at the time had ever found an early human fossil while looking for it{{spaced ndash}}he joined the Dutch East Indies Army as a military surgeon.{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|p=59 ["unorthodox" venture; was refused government funding; hired as medical officer] and 61 ["he was the first person to set out on a deliberate search for fossils of human ancestors"]}} Because of his work duties, it was only in July 1888 that he began to [[excavation (archaeology)|excavate]] caves in [[Sumatra]].{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|p=61}} Having quickly found abundant fossils of large mammals, Dubois was relieved of his military duties (March 1889), and the colonial government assigned two engineers and fifty convicts to help him with his excavations.{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|pp=61–62}} After he failed to find the fossils he was looking for on Sumatra, he moved on to Java in 1890.{{sfn|Theunissen|1989|pp=41–43}}

Again assisted by convict laborers and two army corporals, Dubois began searching along the [[Solo River]] near [[Trinil]] in August 1891.<ref name="EB">{{cite encyclopedia|title=Java Man (extinct hominid) |encyclopedia=Encyclopædia Britannica |publisher=britannica.com |url= http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/301721/Java-man |access-date=2013-06-05}}</ref> His team soon excavated a [[molar (tooth)|molar]] (Trinil 1) and a [[calvaria (skull)|skullcap]] (Trinil 2). Its characteristics were a long [[Human cranium|cranium]] with a [[sagittal keel]] and heavy browridge. Dubois first gave them the name ''[[Anthropopithecus]]'' ("man-ape"), as the chimpanzee was sometimes known at the time. He chose this name because a similar tooth found in the [[Siwalik Hills]] in India in 1878 had been named ''Anthropopithecus'', and because Dubois first assessed the cranium to have been about {{convert|700|cm3}}, closer to apes than to humans.

In August 1892, a year later, Dubois's team found a long [[femur]] (thighbone) shaped like a human one, suggesting that its owner had stood upright. The femur bone was found 50 feet (approx. 15 meters) from the original find one year earlier. Believing that the three fossils belonged to a single individual, "probably a very aged female", Dubois renamed the specimen ''Anthropopithecus erectus''.{{sfnm|1a1=de Vos|1y=2004|1p=272 [citation from an assessment Dubois made in 1893]|2a1=Swisher|2a2=Curtis|2a3=Lewin|2y=2000|2p=61 [name ''Anthropopithecus'']}} Only in late 1892, when he determined that the cranium measured about {{convert|900|cm3}}, did Dubois consider that his specimen was a [[transitional fossil|transitional form]] between apes and humans.{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|p=67}} In 1894,<ref>Mai, Larry L., Marcus Young Owl, M. Patricia Kersting. [http://www.ured-douala.com/download/The_Cambridge_Dictionary_of_Human_Biology_And_Evolution.pdf ''The Cambridge Dictionary of Human Biology and Evolution''], Cambridge University Press 2005, p. 30</ref> he thus renamed it ''Pithecanthropus erectus'' ("upright ape-man"), borrowing the genus name ''[[Pithecanthropus]]'' from [[Ernst Haeckel]], who had coined it a few years earlier to refer to a supposed "missing link" between apes and humans.{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|pp=66–7}} This specimen has also been known as Pithecanthropus 1.<ref>{{cite web| title=Images of Trinil 2 |url= http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/fossils/trinil-2 | access-date=2013-02-08|date= 2010-01-25 }}</ref>

===Comparisons with Peking Man===
{{further|Peking Man}}
In 1927, Canadian [[Davidson Black]] identified two fossilized teeth he had found in [[Zhoukoudian]] near [[Beijing]] as belonging to an ancient human, and named his specimen ''Sinanthropus pekinensis'', now better known as [[Peking Man]].{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|p=75}} In December 1929, the first of several skullcaps was found on the same site, and it appeared similar but slightly larger than Java Man.{{sfnm|1a1=Schmalzer|1y=2008|1pp=44–45 [date of discovery]|2a1=Swisher|2a2=Curtis|2a3=Lewin|2y=2000|pp=75–76 [resemblance to Java Man]}} [[Franz Weidenreich]], who replaced Black in China after the latter's death in 1933, argued that ''Sinanthropus'' was also a transitional fossil between apes and humans, and was in fact so similar to Java's ''Pithecanthropus'' that they should both belong to the family [[Hominidae]]. Eugène Dubois categorically refused to entertain this possibility, dismissing Peking Man as a kind of [[Neanderthal]], closer to humans than the ''Pithecanthropus'', and insisting that Pithecanthropus belonged to its own [[superfamily (biology)|superfamily]], the Pithecanthropoidea.{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|pp=74–76}}

===Other discoveries on Java===
{{further|Solo Man|Mojokerto child|Sangiran}}
After the discovery of Java Man, Berlin-born paleontologist [[Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald|G. H. R. von Koenigswald]] recovered several other early human fossils in Java. Between 1931 and 1933 von Koenigswald discovered fossils of [[Solo Man]] from sites along the [[Bengawan Solo River]] on [[Java (island)|Java]], including several skullcaps and cranial fragments.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Schwartz|first1=Jeffrey H. |last2=Tattersall|first2=Ian |title=The Human Fossil Record, Craniodental Morphology of Genus Homo (Africa and Asia)|date=2005|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|page=450}}</ref> In 1936, von Koenigswald discovered a juvenile skullcap known as the [[Mojokerto child]] in [[East Java]].{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|p=42}} Considering the Mojokerto child skull cap to be closely related to humans, von Koenigswald wanted to name it ''Pithecanthropus modjokertensis'' (after Dubois's specimen), but Dubois protested that Pithecanthropus was not a human but an "ape-man".{{sfn|Theunissen|1989|pp=161–62}}

Von Koenigswald also made several discoveries in [[Sangiran]], Central Java, where more fossils of early humans were discovered between 1936 and 1941.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=593|title=Sangiran Early Man Site|publisher=UNESCO World Heritage Centre|access-date=2014-07-02}}</ref> Among the discoveries was [[Sangiran 2|a skullcap of similar size]] to that found by Dubois at the Trinil 2 site. Von Koenigswald's discoveries in [[Sangiran]] convinced him that all these skulls belonged to [[early human]]s. Dubois again refused to acknowledge the similarity. Ralph von Koenigswald and Franz Weidenreich compared the fossils from Java and Zhoukoudian and concluded that Java Man and Peking Man were closely related.{{sfn|Theunissen|1989|pp=161–62}} Dubois died in 1940, still refusing to recognize their conclusion,{{sfn|Theunissen|1989|pp=161–62}}{{sfn|Swisher|Curtis|Lewin|2000|pp=76–79}} and official reports remain critical of the Sangiran site's poor presentation and interpretation.<ref>{{citation |author=UNESCO World Heritage Committee |title=State of conservation of properties inscribed on the World Heritage List |year=2002|url= https://whc.unesco.org/archive/2002/whc-02-conf202-17reve.pdf |pages=29–30}}</ref>