Abstract
JAVA, from its geographical situation, being just one of those countries where the remains of a connecting form between man and the higher apes would be extremely likely to ocur, zoologists have naturally been attracted by the title of the work before us, which proclaims in no uncertain tones that such a missing link has actually been discovered. A feeling of disappointment will, however, probably come over the student, when he finds how imperfect are the remains on the evidence of which this startling announcement is made; and when he has submitted them to a critical examination, he will piobably have little difficulty in concluding that they do not belong to a wild animal at all. The specimens described are three in number, and were discovered in strata of presumed Pleistocene age near a spot called Trinil. The first of these is a last upper molar tooth, found during the drying-up of a river-bed in the autumn of 1891. A month later, the roof of a large cranium was discovered in the same bed, at a distance of only about a yard from the spot where the tooth laid. Finally, in August 1892, at a distance of some sixteen yards higher up the stream, a left femur was disinterred, which is stated to present much more human resemblances than either of the other two specimens. The bed from which this bone was derived is stated to have been the same as that from which the other two specimens were obtained. The author is confident that all are referable to a single animal; and we are content to accept this view.
Pithecanthropus Erectus, eine Menschenaehnliche Uebergangsform aus Java.
By E. Dubois. 4to, pp. 40, illustrated. (Batavia, 1894.)
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L., R. Pithecanthropus Erectus, eine Menschenaehnliche Uebergangsform aus Java. Nature 51, 291 (1895). https://doi.org/10.1038/051291a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/051291a0