Java Man

From CreationWiki, the encyclopedia of creation science

The human fossil commonly known as Java Man was found in 1891 by Eugene Dubois who was the first person to deliberately search for human ancestors. Dubois was a former student of Ernst Haeckel who became intent on discovering the missing link his mentor believed had evolved somewhere in Africa or East Asia, and which Haeckel had already named without any physical evidence - Pithecanthropus alalus (man without speach). To aid in his investigations, Dubois signed up as a doctor with the Dutch medical corps in the Dutch East Indies with the intention of hunting for fossils during his spare time.

After years of excavations with the assistance of forced laborers, they dug up a tooth and skullcap on the banks of the Solo River on Java island (an island of Indonesia). The skullcap was ape-like having a low forehead and large eyebrow ridges. The following year and about forty feet away, the workmen uncovered a thigh bone that was clearly human. Due to the close proximity of the find, Dubois assumed they belonged to the same creature. Dubois then named the find Pithecanthropus erectus (erect ape-man).

After returning to Europe in 1895, Dubois went on a lecture circuit and displayed his fossils to the International Congress of Zoology. His discovery received a lukewarm reception, causing him to became secretive, and paranoid, refusing to let anyone else examine the bones. Rudolph Virchow, who had been Haeckel's professor and is considered the father of modern pathology remarked: "In my opinion this creature was an animal, a giant gibbon, in fact. The thigh bone has not the slightest connection with the skull."

A later team of German scientists traveled to Java in 1907 to unearth more clues on human ancestry. They hired 75 workers and sent 43 crates of fossil material back to Germany, but no evidence of Pithecanthropus could be found. Instead the German scientists found modern flora and fauna in the strata where Dubois had found his Pithecanthropus. Dr. E. Carthaus, a geologist on the expedition concluded that Pithecanthropus was a modern human.

Further suspicions regarding the credibility of Dubois involve two other skullcaps that Dubois expedition had uncovered which were clearly human. He apparently failed to display the human skullcaps when parading his Pithecanthropus. In fact, he kept the skulls hidden under the floorboards of his house for thirty years, then finally made them known in the 1920s. Some have claimed that 'Dubois renounced Java man as a “missing link” and claimed it was just a giant gibbon. This claim is false, and is listed under Answers In Genesis's list of Arguments we think creationists should not use.

Over the last 30 years, other fossil fragments similar to Pithecanthropus, were discovered in Java. In the 1950s, Pithecanthropus was transferred to the genus Homo, and became the first fossil to be known as Homo erectus.