424 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 192 8 



THE JAVA APE MAN OR TRINIL MAN 



(Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois) 



This " find " consists of a skullcap, a femur, and two lower molar 

 teeth. The specimens are represented in Plates 1, 2, and 3, and Plate 

 4, Figure 2. A third tooth, a lower premolar, has also been described, 

 but it has not figured conspicuously in the discussion. 



Dr. Eugene Dubois, to whom the discovery is due, thus describes 

 the circumstances: 



For the proper interpretation of these osseous remains the circumstances 

 under which they were found is quite as important a factor as the anatomical 

 considerations. I will therefore first give some particulars regarding theii 

 situation when discovered. ... At the place where the remains were 

 discovered at Trinil the strata, everywhere composed of volcanic tufa, lie 

 exposed in the clifflike declivity of the bank of a river of considerable size, 

 the Bengawan, or Solo. They usually consist here of a sandstone of slight con- 

 sistency which, in its deeper layers at about the level of the river during the 

 dry season, becomes coarser and coarser as more and more lapilli or volcanic 

 stones form part of its composition. The bones are found throughout the 

 entire thickness of the sandstone strata, being very numerous in the lower 

 half and most so in the stratum, about 1 meter thick, in which the lapilli 

 are found. In the conglomerate which lies under this I found but few, and 

 none at all in the subadjacent argillaceous layer. The four fragments of the 

 skeleton of Pithecanthropus were found in different years, because, on account 

 of the rise of the river during every rainy season, the excavations were neces- 

 sarily suspended and could not be resumed until the next dry season. Besides, 

 in the same working season one fragment was found later than the other, 

 because the stone had to be removed cautiously in layers and by marked-ofl 

 areas. The four fragments were, however, found at exactly the same level 

 in the entirely untouched lapilli stratum. They were therefore deposited al 

 the same time — that is to say, they are of the same age. The teeth were 

 distant from the skull from 1 to, at most, 3 meters ; the femur was 15 meters 

 away. The quite sharp relief of their surface does not supjwrt the theory 

 that they have been washed out from some older layer and then embedded: 

 for a second time. They were found at the place of their original deposit. 

 Besides, they all show exactly the same state of preservation and of petrefac- 

 tion as do all other bones that have been taken from this particular stratum 

 at Trinil. Their specific gravity (sp. gr. of compact tissue=2.456) is much 

 greater than that of unpetrified bones (sp. gr. of compact tissue=1.930). The 

 femur weighs 1 kilogram, therefore considerably more than double the weight 

 of a recent human femur of the same size; the medullary cavity is partly 

 filled with a stony mass. The eroded upper surface which the skullcap and 

 not the femur shows occurred in the bed where it was found, appearing on 

 many bones excavated near the skullcap, and is caused by infiltration of water 

 through the cliff at that place. Associated with these bones I also found very 

 numerous remains of a small axislike species of Cervus, frequently, also, the 

 remains of Stcgodon. Farther away were found Buhalus, apparently identical 

 with the Siwalik species, Leptoios, Bosclaphus, Ehiuoceros, Felis, Sus, Hyaena, 

 that all appear to be of new species. Of species found in other situations of the 

 same stratum I will mention a gigantic Manis, more than three times the 

 length of the existing Javanese species ; a Hippopotamus, belonging to the same 



