Editing Java Man (section)

===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}}