428 ANNUAL EEPOET SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1928 



This hypothesis is not new ; it was clearly stated by several naturalists, par- 

 ticularly by Volz. The bone fragments are in its favor ; the most recent geologi- 

 cal studies, tending to postdate the layer, also support it. The new argument 

 which I think I can bring forward in its favor is that we know several examples 

 of comparative cases. 



In all countries during Pliocene and Quaternary times there were giant forms 

 of animals whose living representatives are now greatly reduced in size. In 

 addition to the great edentates of South America, Megatherium and Glyptodon, 

 which Cuvier named " giant sloths " and " armadillos," to the enormous Aus- 

 tralian marsupial, Diprotodon, to a giant Pangolin found in Java in the same 

 layer as Pithecciuthropus, to the Trogontherium of European Pleistocene de- 

 posits, which is really a sort of giant beaver; in addition, also, to the whole 

 series of large running birds of Madagascar and of New Zealand recently ex- 

 tinct, examples among the primates themselves are not wanting. 



Pilgrim found in the Siwalik Hills the remains of a monkey which he named 

 Dryopithecus giganteus. Megaladapis, of the recent geological formations in 

 Madagascar, is none other than a giant lemur. Archaeoletuur and Hadropithe- 

 cus, from the same layers, are also lemurs of larger size than the living forms ; 

 but they show morphological characters of a higher order, denoting a tendency 

 toward the higher ape type, for the tendency toward greater perfection is not 

 exclusively confined to the human branch. 



We may therefore consider that Pitheeanthropus, discovered in the same 

 zoological region as the modern gibbons, may have been a large species either 

 of the genus Gibbon, or rather of a closely allied genus related to the same 

 group. This form might have been superior to its congeners, not only in size 

 but also in other morphological characters, and particularly in cerebral ca- 

 pacity, a character of the first importance in which Pithecanthropus truly ap- 

 proaches the human stock. ... It would thus represent a branchlet, more 

 highly specialized than the neighboring branchlets of the most highly de- 

 veloped gibbon branch, and it must soon have died out, perhaps because of this 

 very specialization. Pithecanthropus, then, does not belong to the ancestral line 

 of the genus Homo. The more or less " human " characters of its skullcap, and 

 even of its femur, can only be looked upon as characters due to convergence 

 and not to descent. [Figure 1, diagram 4.] 



This interpretation of the memorable Javan discovery does not lessen its in- 

 terest. I am tempted to say that, on the contrary, it increases it, since the 

 human line, while still retaining its independence, seems thus morphologically 

 less isolated than fonnerly from the neighboring lines. It leads us to the 

 admission that in other days there existed anthropoids higher than living 

 anthropoids, but inferior to the fossil men known to us, who themselves were 

 inferior to living man. The physical relationship between ape and man here 

 asserts itself from a new point of view. 



SUMMARY OF OPINIONS ABOUT THE JAVA MAN 



(Pithecanthropus) 



There is only one point on which all writers agree, namely, that the 

 skullcap is strangely different from the corresponding part of other 

 known mammals, both recent and fossil. In striking contrast we 

 find that there are not less than 15 points of disagreement. 



