11. Pithecanthropus
Pithecanthropus erectus, the “erect ape-man,” was determined from the top part of a skull, a thigh bone, and two molar teeth found in 1891 under fifty feet of strata by Dubois, a Dutch surgeon, near Trinil, in the East Indian island of Java. The skull and the thigh lay some distance apart but at the same level and probably are from the same individual. The period of the stratum is generally considered early Pleistocene, possibly approximately contemporary with the first or Günz glaciation of Europe—nearly a million years ago, by the time scale here followed. Java was then a part of the mainland of Asia.
The skull is low, with narrow receding forehead and heavy ridges of bone above the eye sockets—“supraorbital ridges.” The capacity is estimated at 850 or 900 cubic centimeters—half as much again as that of a large gorilla, but nearly one-half less than the average for modern man. The skull is dolichocephalic—long for its breadth—like the skulls of all early fossil men; whereas the anthropoid apes are more broad-headed. The jaws are believed to have projected almost like a snout; but as they remain undiscovered, this part of the reconstruction is conjectural. The thigh bone is remarkably straight, indicating habitual upright posture; its length suggests that the total body stature was about 5 feet 7 inches, or as much as the height of most Europeans.
Pithecanthropus was a terrestrial and not an arboreal form. He seems to have been slightly more similar to modern man than to any ape, and is the most primitive manlike type yet discovered. But he is very different from both man and the apes, as his name indicates: Pithecanthropus is a distinct genus, not included in Homo, or man.