WHOLE VOL. SKELETAL REMAINS OF EARLY MAN HRDLICKA 53 



The latter view was, according to Schuster, supported by Stremme ; ' 

 for K. and Frau Martin and Elbert " the deposits were old Quaternary ; 

 for Pohlig,' Volz * and Carthaus * mid-Quaternary. Julius Schuster,' 

 on the basis of his study of the plant remains secured by the Selenka 

 1907-08 Expedition to Trinil, from the Pithecanthropus deposits, 

 reached the conclusion that they date from the time when Java 

 [and Sumatra] was still connected with the Asiatic mainland; that 

 this connection was severed in the old diluvial [early Quaternary] 

 times ; and that the flora of the Pithecanthropus layer, and necessarily 

 also the remains of the latter, could be neither more recent nor older 

 than the old diluvium [early Quaternary], and that the nature of the 

 flora speaks for a cooler and moister period." In his more extended 

 report in the Selenka-Blanckenhorn Memoir ' Schuster believed that 

 he had demonstrated that " the Pithecanthropus erectus lived in the 

 Old-Diluvium [early Quaternary] and that during the large Pluvial 

 period." Blanckenhorn * (p. 268), after critically reviewing the whole 

 evidence, decided also for the Great Rainy period, or, more definitely, 

 for the first (Giinz-Mindel) interglacial. 



CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 



The remains ascribed to the " Pithecanthropus " have, as indicated 

 in the preceding pages, given rise to a great deal of scientific specu- 

 lation and contention, which to this day has led to no definite, stab- 

 ilized result. What are the causes of this unsatisfactory condition? 



The causes are multiple ; they relate to everything from the circum- 

 stances of the find to the identification of the remains. But viewed 

 with due perspective they reduce to two main difficulties that will be 

 met with again and again in the studies of early man and related 

 forms. The first of these is the inadequacy of the Java material ; and 

 the second is the lack of sufficient materials for decisive comparisons. 



Defects of the material. — The Trinil remains occur in secondary de- 

 posits ; the initial data on them are perhaps not as detailed as desirable ; 



. * In Selenka, M. Lenore, and Blanckenhorn, Max, Die Pithecanthropus 

 Schichten auf Java, Leipzig, 1911 ; with the collaboration of E. Carthaus, C. M. 

 Dozy, K. and H. Martin, H. Stremme, H. Pohlig, Walkhoff, D. Schuster, and 

 others. 



^ Ueber das Alter der Kendeng-Schichten mit Pithecanthropus. Neu. Jahrb. f. 

 Min., Beil., Vol. 25, pp. 648-662, 1908. 



^ Eiszeit und Urgeschichte des Menschen, p. 88, 1907. 



' Gaea, Vol. 45, p. 385 et scq., 1909. 



° Schuster, J., Ein Beitrag zur Pithecanthropus-Frage. Sitzber. K. Bayer. A. K. 

 Wiss., Abh. 17, 30 pp., 1909. Munich, 1910. 



