Hunting for the home of Indonesia's Java Man

BBC ^ | Saturday, November 21, 2009 | not named ("from our own correspondent")

[SunkenCiv]

This year has seen the discovery in Ethiopia of Ardi, the fossil skeleton believed to be the oldest human relative. But long before Ardi came Java Man, who was unearthed in the Indonesian village of Sangiran 120 years ago. Christine Finn has been on a quest to find the origins of this paleo-celebrity... Java Man. The name sounds like a 1970s men's aftershave. One possibly not much used because the face, lovingly reconstructed by the palaeontologists, suggested he was no great shaver. He also had small, deep-set eyes and an enormous jaw. But Java Man was still a hero when he surfaced at the end of the 19th Century: Pithecanthropus erectus, an early contender for the title of missing link between the first upright hominids and modern humans... [were excavated by] Eugene Dubois, the Dutch man who came across the top of his skull on the riverbank at nearby Trinil in 1891, and Ralph von Koenigswald, a German paleoanthropologist, drawn to Sangiran in the 1930s by its rich fossil finds, which emerged especially after it had been raining heavily... A hero from Sangiran, an important archaeological excavation area in Java, was said to have once used supernatural powers to fight off marauding giants... In the seeming middle-of-nowhere, we found a monumental, but rather neglected, concrete marker to another even earlier hominid, Meganthropus paleojavanicus, who lived there around 1.5 million years ago.

[SunkenCiv]

Java fossils were among the first known specimens of Homo erectus

[SunkenCiv]

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[ari-freedom]

[ari-freedom]

http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2009/01/17/the-man-coffee-country.html

[Sacajaweau]

Huge jaw...little eyes....Jay Leno....John Kerry....

[gusopol3]

watch it.

[mountainlion]

So how do I know who is a fraud and who is for real? It seems there were more fraudulent men than real.

[webstersII]

“missing link between the first upright hominids and modern humans...”

I thought the evos on FR said that it was incorrect to speak of a ‘missing link’ like this.

[PIF]

You can’t. The original ‘Java Man’ bones were lost during WWII. I think they were in someone’s suitcase, taken to Nanking - just in time for the arrival of the Japanese who slaughtered everbody they could in the city.

So was the original the same as those found today? Who knows?

[6SJ7]

That depiction of Java Man looks a bit like the actor Christopher Lloyd.

[JimSEA]

The search for Java Man began on an Indonesian motorcycle taxi

LOL Similar to many of my "quests" in Thailand. Everyone you ask for directions is anxious to help and happy to tell you how to get there even if they have no actual knowledge. You lose face if you don't know so it is better to make up directions rather than admit ignorance.

[Stultis]

The original ‘Java Man’ bones were lost during WWII.

Nope. You're thinking of "Peking Man". Although both are the same species: Homo erectus.

[PIF]

Yep, now that you refresh my aging memory, you are correct.

[JoeProBono]

[SunkenCiv]

And you thought that time machine was just special effects...

[SunkenCiv]

They may have.

[SunkenCiv]

LOL!

[colorado tanker]

That couple could have a future in Geico commercials.

[SunkenCiv]

:’)