9. THE MOST ANCIENT SKELETAL REMAINS OF MAN 1

By A. HRDLIČKA

INTRODUCTION

The early history of the human race, though merged in the darkness of ages, is step by step being traced and reconstructed; and apparently the time is drawing near when science will be able to announce, in the main at least, the definite solution of the profound and involved problem of man's origin, when, in other words, it will be in a position to show, however imperfectly, when, where, and how man ascended from the lower orders.

Actual research into the antiquity of mankind began considerably less than a century ago, and the more intensive investigations in this field cover hardly a generation. Such investigations have been fraught with many difficulties and are growing in complexity. They demand patient watchfulness, diligent and long-extended exploration, and considerable expense. The most careful attention must in every case be given to geological and paleontological evidence. And, after all, the net results of a prolonged quest may be no more than a few stone chips and implements, or perhaps a tooth, or a few badly crushed bones, belonging to human antiquity. But, as there are many hands at work, invaluable materials are accumulating. Besides this every now and then the search is more richly rewarded, or some important specimen is discovered accidentally; and every new, well-authenticated addition to the remains of early man or his predecessors, more particularly if it is a part of the skeleton, means a fresh, highly valuable document which throws supplementary light on the natural history of the human being. . .

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Europe, particularly in its more western and southern portions, has thus far proved the richest in ancient human remains. Africa, Asia, and those parts of Oceanica which were formerly connected with the Asiatic continent have as yet been but little explored. The island of Java, however, which is within the last named region, has furnished an intensely interesting specimen bearing on man's evolution and antiquity. As to America, the researches have thus far yielded nothing that could possibly

1 From Smithsonian Report for 1913, pages 491-552, Washington, 1914. The illustrations in the original have been renumbered and in some cases simplified.

be accepted as representing man of geological antiquity. For the present, therefore, an account of the very ancient remains of man, with the exception of the Java specimen, must be limited to early European forms. . .

PITHECANTHROPUS ERECTUS

In 1891-92 Dr. E. Dubois, then a surgeon in the Dutch army, while engaged in paleontological excavations along the left bank of the Bengavan River, near Trinil, in the central part of the Island of Java, discovered several skeletal parts of a primate evidently higher in scale and nearer to man than any before known.

The remains were thoroughly petrified and comprised, in all, the vault of a skull, two molar teeth, and a femur.

The bones were not found simultaneously nor in the same place. They lay some distances apart, though at the same horizon and embedded in the same stratum of volcanic matrix. This stratum was rich in fossil remains of various organic forms and, in the locality where the excavations were carried on, was about 1 meter below the dry-season water level, or 12 to 15 meters below the plain in which the river had cut its bed.

In September, 1891, the excavations in the volcanic matrix yielded unexpectedly, among other fossils, a remarkable tooth, a molar which was determined as having belonged to a large unknown primate. A month later the unique and most interesting skull cap was discovered, only 1 meter distant from the place where lay the tooth. It now became certain that traces had come to light of a hitherto unknown primate of large size, standing in many respects nearer to man than any of the actual anthropoid apes. It was seemingly an intermediate form between the apes and man, and was characterized by the name of "pithecanthropus."

Then came the rainy season and work had to be suspended. Exploration was recommenced, however, as early as possible in 1892, and in August of that year the femur was found about 15 meters (50 feet) from the locality where the other specimens had been embedded. Finally, in October of the same year, the second molar was secured, at a distance of not more than 3 meters (13 feet) from the original position of the skull cap, and in the direction of the resting place of the femur.

The accompanying illustration (fig. 1) shows the locality of the discovery and the approximate positions of the specimens.

All four specimens were considerably mineralized, being of chocolatebrown color, very heavy, and "harder than marble." Numerous bones of mammals found in the same bed belonged to species now extinct or, so far as known, not now living in Java, and showed fossilization similar to that of the bones of the Pithecanthropus. The contours of the teeth

and the femur were sharp, indicating that it has not been washed or rolled about to any great extent; but the skull cap showed the effects of erosion, probably caused by acidulous water seeping through the deposits.

All indications and a detailed study of the specimens led Dubois to the conclusions that: (1) The four skeletal pieces in question were contemporaneous; (2) they were of the age of the stratum in which found;

Fig. 1. Section of the strata where the Pithecanthropus bones were discovered. B, soft sandstone; D, level at which the skeletal remains were found; F, argillaceous layer; G, marine breccia; H, wet-season level of the river; I, dry-season level of the river.

(3) they belonged to one skeleton; and (4) they represent a transitional form of beings between the anthropoid apes and man, belonging to the direct line in the genealogy of the latter. . . .

While Dubois and other scientific men regard the Pithecanthropus remains as all belonging to the same skeleton, as dating chronologically from the latest part of the Tertiary or the earliest phase of the Quaternary

period, and as representing a true intermediary form between the anthropoid apes and man, others have expressed doubts as to whether the four bones belong to the same form; or they consider the age of the remains, though no doubt early Quaternary, to be less than that estimated by Dubois. . . .

The skull cap (fig. 2) measures in greatest length 18.5 cm., in greatest (parietal) breadth 13 cm., and at the minimum of the frontal constriction 8.7 cm. It is dolichocephalic, its outline as seen from above is oblongly ovoid, narrowing considerably forward, and it is very low. It presents

Fig. 2. Pithecanthropus erectus skull cap, from left side.

excessively prominent though not massive supraorbital arch and a very sloping front. The frontal bone, in addition, shows externally and along its middle a well-defined ridge, running from a short distance above the glabella toward bregma, and a marked low protuberance just forward of the bregma. The sagittal region is relatively flat and smooth and the occiput presents a dull transverse crest, connecting as in apes, though in much less pronounced manner, with the supramastoid crest on each side.

Without going into a detailed discussion of these characteristics, it will suffice to say that in most respects the specimen differs more or less from the ordinary human skull of today as well as from those of early man, so far as known, and approaches correspondingly the crania of the anthropoid apes.

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The walls of the skull are of only moderate thickness. Its internal capacity was originally believed by Dubois to have been quite large,

namely about 1,000 c.c., but eventually he reduced this estimate to 900 c.c. or a little over. The capacity of an average cranium of a white American would amount in the male to about 1,500, in the female to about 1,350 c.c., while in the largest living anthropoid apes it only rarely attains or exceeds 600 c.c.

The impression which a comprehensive study of the whole skull cap carries to the observer is, that it represents a hitherto unknown primate

Fig. 3. Restoration of the skull of Pithecanthropus (After Dubois).

form, which, whatever it may eventually be identified with and whether or not man's direct ancestor, stands morphologically between man and the known anthropoid apes, fills an important space in the hitherto existing large void between the two, and constitutes a precious document for the natural history of man.

Dubois's theoretical restoration of the whole cranium of the Pithecanthropus, which in all probability comes fairly near to the reality, is shown in figure 3. . . .

On the whole, it seems evident that the two teeth represent a higher primate form; in all probability they come from one individual, and their