A New Human by Morwood Mike; van Oosterzee Penny; & Penny van Oosterzee

Author:Morwood, Mike; van Oosterzee, Penny; & Penny van Oosterzee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2007-05-14T16:00:00+00:00

Ngandong Skull XI. During 1931–33, a total of 11 such late Homo erectus skulls were excavated from the Ngandong Terrace on the Solo River in East Java. Despite obvious similarities with the older Pithecanthropus erectus cranium found by Dubois, he dismissed these finds as being modern humans that were similar to Australian Aborigines. (CREDIT: MIKE MORWOOD, AFTER WEIDENREICH, 1951)

Both men also tried to enlist support from fellow scientists of note. In 1938, Dubois invited Franz Weidenreich, who, after the premature death of Davidson Black, was in charge of the Chou Kou Tien excavations and finds, to visit, with the idea of convincing him that Sinanthropus and Pithecanthropus were fundamentally different. However, von Koenigswald and his new fossil finds proved more persuasive and he was invited by Weidenreich to visit Peking to see the Sinanthropus material. Weidenreich also asked him to bring the new Sangiran hominid fossils to make comparisons. Von Koenigswald accepted the invitation and later wrote:

Every detail of the originals was compared: in every respect they showed a considerable degree of correspondence. The two fossil men are undoubtedly closely allied, and Davidson Black’s original conjecture that Sinanthropus and Pithecanthropus are related forms—against which Dubois threw the whole weight of his authority—was fully confirmed by our detailed comparison.

Von Koenigswald and Weidenreich published this conclusion in an article in Nature, but World War II then interrupted further research and debate, during which time the Sangiran and Mojokerto fossils were safely concealed, while all the original Sinanthropus finds were lost. Dubois’ last words on the subject, two weeks before his death at age 82 on December 16, 1940, were:

It is most regrettable, that for the interpretation of the important discoveries of human fossils in China and Java, WEIDENREICH, VON KOENIGSWALD and WEINART were thus guided by preconceived opinions, and consequently did not contribute to (on the contrary they impeded) the advance of knowledge of man’s place in nature, what is commonly called human phylogenetic evolution. Real advance appears to depend on obtaining material data in an unbiased way.

The demise of Dubois did not end the war of words. In his introduction to the monograph on the Ngandong fossils crania in 1951, Weidenreich replied:

The limit of tolerance for these human foibles is attained when the proponent of a questionable scientific doctrine endeavours to maintain it against all possible odds by misrepresentation, misinformation, and the suppression of contradictory data, and by insinuating unfairness in opponents of his views. I regret to find it necessary to accuse Dubois of such an attitude.

By that time, the major issue for East Asian hominids, their taxonomy, had been tackled by Harvard evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, who lumped a number of specimens together, including the fossils from Chou Kou Tien and Java, into one species—Homo erectus. He also distinguished a number of geographical and chronological subspecies, including Homo erectus pekinensis from China; and Lower Pleistocene Homo erectus robustus, Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus erectus and Late Pleistocene Homo erectus soloensis from Java. The latter, from the sites of Ngandong, Ngawi and Sambungmacan along the Solo River, are a population with more modern traits.

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