ANCIENT REMAINS OF MAN — HKDLICKA. 495 



The time that has elapsed since the new anthropoid, or rather 

 superanthropoid beings progressing toward man developed the phy- 

 sical characteristics that may be regarded as distinctively human, 

 and acquired the faculty of speech, can not be computed in years, 

 but the length of that period must have been many times greater 

 than the duration of our recent or Holocene epoch, the relatively 

 brief phase since the recession of the last ice invasion.^ 



The Oldest Well- Authenticated Skeletal Remains of Man Now 



Existing. 



THE "PITHECANTHROPUS." 

 (Pithecanthropus erectus Dubois.) 



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 Eiver, 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 em- 

 bedded 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 unloiown pri- 

 mate. A montli 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 hith- 

 erto 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 " fithecanthropusy 



Then came the rainy season and work had to be suspended. Ex- 

 ploration 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 em- 



1 For the duration and subdivision of the Glacial Epoch the following works may be 

 consulted : T. E. Chamberlin and R. D. Salisbury's Geology, 1906 ; Osborn, H. F., The 

 age of mammals in Europe, Asia, and North America ; H. Obermaier, Der Mensch der 

 Vorzeit, 8°, Berlin, 1912 ; and R. R. Schmidt, E. Koken and A. Schliz, Die Dlluviale Vor- 

 zeit Deutschlands, 4", Stuttgart, 1912. These works give further bibliography. 



