Others paleontologists disagree, and various other conclusions have been postulated.įig. Once designated Pithecanthropus erectus (erect ape-man), the creature now is generally classified as a Homo erectus, which many writers categorize as nothing more than a variant of human kind (Mehlert 1994). Trinil was a worksite located by the Bengavan River in Java, a city in modern-day Indonesia (fig. The Java Man fossil was discovered by a work crew hired by Eugène Dubois (1858–1940) in August 1891, near the village of Trinil. This review of the fossil discovery, and the facts behind it, document that this conclusion is problematic. Although Java Man was long regarded as a “progressive ape or primitive man” (Osborn 1938, 11) it is now widely regarded not as a link between apes and humans, but rather merely another human variation called Homo erectus. Many evolutionists touted it as definitive proof of human evolution, but others debated exactly what it was. The fossils were interpreted as “a creature intermediate in anatomical type between the living great apes and modern man” (Carrington 1963, 83). It was used as evidence of ape-to-human evolution for over a half century and was one of the alleged ape-like creatures produced as the prime evidence for evolution in the written testimony submitted at the Scopes Trial. Java Man was historically one of the most important fossil finds used to document human evolution. Keywords: Java Man, Human evolution, Homo erectus, missing links, Wadjak Man, Eugène Dubois, Ape ancestors, Darwin, fossil record, Scopes trial, evolution controversy Introduction
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