Java Man
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Pithecanthropus erectus redirects here. For the song and album by that title, see Pithecanthropus Erectus (Mingus).
Java Man was one of the first specimens of Homo erectus to be discovered. It was originally given the scientific name Pithecanthropus erectus by its discoverer Eugène Dubois, who found the remains at the site of Trinil in 1891. The word "pithecanthropos" was derived from Greek roots and means ape man.
Dubois' find was not a complete specimen, but consisted merely of a skullcap, a femur, and three teeth. It is also not clear whether those bones come from the same species. A 342-page report written shortly after the find throws much doubt upon the validity of this particular specimen. Despite this, the Java Man is still found in many textbooks today. A second Java Man was later discovered in the village of Sangiran, Central Java, 18km to the north of Solo. His remains, a skullcap of similar size to that found by Dubois, was discovered by Berlin-born paleontologist GHR von Koenigswald in 1936, as a direct result of excavations by Dubois in 1891.
Until older human remains were discovered in the Great Rift Valley in Kenya, Dubois' and Koenigswald's discoveries were the oldest hominid remains ever found, and the first cited as support for Charles Darwin's and Alfred Russel Wallace's theory of evolution. Many scientists of the day even suggested that Dubois' Java Man might have been the so-called "missing link", the creature that is supposed to provide the evolutionary connection between the apes and modern man. However, due to 19th Century skepticism, this theory was never credited to Dubois.
Brazilian cartoonist Maurício de Sousa, inspired by the Java Man's scientific name, created a caveman called Pitheco, whose full name is Pithecanthropus erectus da Silva (Silva is the most common Brazilian surname)[1]. "Da Silva" is omitted in the English version[2].
