PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS—A FORM FROM THE ANCESTRAL STOCK OF MANKIND.[1]
By Eugène Dubois.
The fossil remains upon which I have founded this new species consist of a calvarium, or skullcap, two upper molars, and a femur. With the exception of one tooth, the second upper molar on the left side, they have already been described by me in a paper published in Batavia in 1894.[2] It now seems desirable to give some special details.
It is well known that a not inconsiderable number of anatomists and zoologists hold diametrically opposite views regarding the significance of these remains. For instance, as to the skull, a few have believed that it is human, although of much more ape-like appearance than hitherto known, while others have considered it the skull of an ape far more human in character than any previously discovered. It is remarkable that only a few have believed in a third possibility, intermediate between these two views, viz, that we have before us here a transition form between apes and men that is neither man nor ape. Recently this intermediate view has made quite significant progress, and a considerable number have accepted it. As to the anthropists and pithecists, as the upholders of the extreme views may be called, the former find their fossil Java man more ape like than they at first did, while the latter have placed their most anthropoid of apes still a few steps higher on the ladder of ascent toward man. These views now tend to coincide still more, because in the meantime it has been possible to test them by an exhibition of the objects themselves, and I have been able to give further particulars, especially as to the circumstances under which the remains were found.
For the proper interpretation of these osseous remains the circumstances under which they were found is quite as important a factor as the anatomical considerations. I will therefore first give some particulars regarding their situation when discovered.
Near the remains that are the subject of this paper I have collected in
