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Catalog no. | Mojokerto 1 Perning 1 |
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Common name | Mojokerto child |
Species | Homo erectus |
Age | 1.43–1.49 million years |
Place discovered | Mojokerto, Indonesia |
Date discovered | 1936 |
Discovered by | Andojo Ralph von Koenigswald |
The Mojokerto child, also known as Mojokerto 1 and Perning 1, is the fossilized skullcap of a juvenile early human. It was discovered in February 1936 near Mojokerto (East Java, Indonesia) by a member of an excavation team led by Ralph von Koenigswald. Von Koenigswald first called the specimen Pithecanthropus modjokertensis but soon renamed it Homo modjokertensis because Eugène Dubois –the discoverer of Java Man, which was then called Pithecanthropus erectus –disagreed that the new fossil was a Pithecanthropus. The skullcap is now identified as belonging to the species Homo erectus .
The Mojokerto child has been the most controversial of the early human fossils that have been found in Indonesia. [1] Its date and even the exact site of its discovery have been widely disputed. First thought to be less than 1.00 Ma (million years old), in 1994 it was claimed, based on argon–argon dating, which was then a new dating method, that the skull was around 1.81 Ma old. The authors of the paper, Carl C. Swisher III and Garniss Curtis, argued that this date had wide implications for our understanding of the first human migrations "Out of Africa". In the early 2000s, however, new archival and scientific research identified the precise layer from which the fossil was excavated in 1936 and showed conclusively that the fossil's earliest possible date was 1.49 Ma.
The fossilized skullcap was discovered in February 1936 by Andojo – sometimes referred to as Tjokrohandojo or Andoyo – an Indonesian who worked at excavating animal fossils in the Kendeng Hills (Pegunungan Kendeng) in East Java on a team led by Ralph von Koenigswald. [2] Andojo originally believed the skull belonged to an orangutan, but von Koenigswald immediately recognized it as human. [3] He named it Pithecanthropus modjokertensis after the nearby town of Mojokerto, which was then spelled "Modjokerto". [4] Eugène Dubois, who had discovered Java Man in the 1890s and named it Pithecanthropus erectus, wrote to von Koenigswald arguing that if the Mojokerto fossil were indeed human, then it could not be a Pithecanthropus (lit., an "ape-man"). Von Koenigswald thus renamed his fossil Homo modjokertensis. [5] It was eventually classified as Homo erectus just like "Java Man" and the numerous early human fossils that von Koenigswald and others found in Sangiran. In Indonesia, the fossil is known as Pithecanthropus modjokertensis. [6]
The fossil's two catalog names "Mojokerto 1" and "Perning 1" come from the town of Mojokerto, which is about 10 kilometres (6 mi) southwest of the site, and from the little village of Perning, which is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) northeast of Mojokerto and 3.5 kilometres (2.2 mi) south of the site. [7]
For decades, the Mojokerto child, whose gender is unknown, was considered non-datable, because the exact site where it was found could not be clearly determined. [8] By 1985, four different locations had been proposed as the possible site of discovery. [1] It was also unclear whether the fossil had been excavated or found on the surface, making dating difficult even if the site itself became certain. [1]
In the early 1990s, geochronologist Garniss Curtis and paleontologist Carl C. Swisher III used the argon–argon dating method to propose a date of 1.81 ± 0.04 Ma for the fossil, that is, 1.81 million years ago, with a margin of error of plus or minus 40,000 years. [9] Their rock sample – "hornblende grains from volcanic pumice that appeared to match the filling of the skull" – came from a site shown to them in 1990 by Teuku Jacob, an Indonesian paleoanthropologist who had studied under Ralph von Koenigswald. [10] Swisher and Curtis announced their findings in a paper that was published in Science magazine in 1994. [9]
The fossil's unexpectedly old age was announced in at least 221 newspapers – including on the front page of The New York Times – and prompted cover stories in Discover , New Scientist , and Time magazines. [11] Swisher and Curtis's conclusion was hotly debated, because it meant that the Mojokerto child was as old as the oldest known specimens of African Homo ergaster (also called Homo erectus sensu lato), suggesting that Homo erectus could have left Africa much earlier than thought, or even evolved in Southeast Asia rather than Africa as most scientists had assumed. [12] Few critics questioned the dating method, but several objected that, considering the uncertainty surrounding the fossil's discovery site, it was unclear whether the rock samples used for dating had been taken from the right location. [13]
In 2003, a paper published by a team led by archeologist Mike Morwood presented 1.49 ± 0.13 Ma as the latest possible date, based on "fission-track dating of single zircon grains". [1] Morwood argued that the rock samples Curtis and Swisher dated came from a pumice bed located 20 metres (66 ft) below the one above which the Mojokerto skullcap was found. The geological horizon immediately under the fossil – Morwood calls it "Pumice Horizon 5" – dates back to 1.49 Ma, whereas the one just above – "Pumice Horizon 6" – dates from 1.43 ± 0.1 Ma. [14] In 2006, Australian archeologist Frank Huffman used pictures and fieldnotes from the 1930s to identify the exact site of the excavation and confirmed that the fossil was indeed found between the two layers that Morwood had dated. Morwood's and Huffman's conclusions have been widely accepted. [15]
Homo ergaster is an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Africa in the Early Pleistocene. Whether H. ergaster constitutes a species of its own or should be subsumed into H. erectus is an ongoing and unresolved dispute within palaeoanthropology. Proponents of synonymisation typically designate H. ergaster as "African Homo erectus" or "Homo erectus ergaster". The name Homo ergaster roughly translates to "working man", a reference to the more advanced tools used by the species in comparison to those of their ancestors. The fossil range of H. ergaster mainly covers the period of 1.7 to 1.4 million years ago, though a broader time range is possible. Though fossils are known from across East and Southern Africa, most H. ergaster fossils have been found along the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya. There are later African fossils, some younger than 1 million years ago, that indicate long-term anatomical continuity, though it is unclear if they can be formally regarded as H. ergaster specimens. As a chronospecies, H. ergaster may have persisted to as late as 600,000 years ago, when new lineages of Homo arose in Africa.
Marie Eugène François Thomas Dubois was a Dutch paleoanthropologist and geologist. He earned worldwide fame for his discovery of Pithecanthropus erectus, or "Java Man". Although hominid fossils had been found and studied before, Dubois was the first anthropologist to embark upon a purposeful search for them.
Meganthropus is an extinct genus of non-hominin hominid ape, known from the Pleistocene of Indonesia. It is known from a series of large jaw and skull fragments found at the Sangiran site near Surakarta in Central Java, Indonesia, alongside several isolated teeth. The genus has a long and convoluted taxonomic history. The original fossils were ascribed to a new species, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus, and for a long time was considered invalid, with the genus name being used as an informal name for the fossils.
Solo Man is a subspecies of H. erectus that lived along the Solo River in Java, Indonesia, about 117,000 to 108,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene. This population is the last known record of the species. It is known from 14 skullcaps, two tibiae, and a piece of the pelvis excavated near the village of Ngandong, and possibly three skulls from Sambungmacan and a skull from Ngawi depending on classification. The Ngandong site was first excavated from 1931 to 1933 under the direction of Willem Frederik Florus Oppenoorth, Carel ter Haar, and Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald, but further study was set back by the Great Depression, World War II and the Indonesian War of Independence. In accordance with historical race concepts, Indonesian H. erectus subspecies were originally classified as the direct ancestors of Aboriginal Australians, but Solo Man is now thought to have no living descendants because the remains far predate modern human immigration into the area, which began roughly 55,000 to 50,000 years ago.
Homo is the genus that emerged from the genus Australopithecus and encompasses the extant species Homo sapiens and several extinct species classified as either ancestral to or closely related to modern humans, including Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis. The oldest member of the genus is Homo habilis, with records of just over 2 million years ago. Homo, together with the genus Paranthropus, is probably sister to Australopithecus africanus, which itself had split from the lineage of Pan, the chimpanzees.
Java Man is an early human fossil discovered in 1891 and 1892 on the island of Java. Estimated to be between 700,000 and 1,490,000 years old, it was, at the time of its discovery, the oldest hominid fossil ever found, and it remains the type specimen for Homo erectus.
Sangiran is an archaeological excavation site in Java in Indonesia. According to a UNESCO report (1995) "Sangiran is recognized by scientists to be one of the most important sites in the world for studying fossil man, ranking alongside Zhoukoudian (China), Willandra Lakes (Australia), Olduvai Gorge (Tanzania), and Sterkfontein, and more fruitful in finds than any of these."
Homo floresiensis( also known as "Flores Man") is an extinct species of small archaic human that inhabited the island of Flores, Indonesia, until the arrival of modern humans about 50,000 years ago.
Gustav Heinrich Ralphvon Koenigswald was a German-Dutch paleontologist and geologist who conducted research on hominins, including Homo erectus. His discoveries and studies of hominid fossils in Java and his studies of other important fossils of south-eastern Asia firmly established his reputation as one of the leading figures of 20th-century paleo-anthropology.
Human taxonomy is the classification of the human species within zoological taxonomy. The systematic genus, Homo, is designed to include both anatomically modern humans and extinct varieties of archaic humans. Current humans have been designated as subspecies Homo sapiens sapiens, differentiated, according to some, from the direct ancestor, Homo sapiens idaltu.
Trinil is a palaeoanthropological site on the banks of the Bengawan Solo River in Ngawi Regency, East Java Province, Indonesia. It was at this site in 1891 that the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois discovered the first early hominin remains to be found outside of Europe: the famous "Java Man" specimen.
Lantian Man, Homo erectus lantianensis) is a subspecies of Homo erectus known from an almost complete mandible from Chenchiawo (陈家窝) Village discovered in 1963, and a partial skull from Gongwangling (公王岭) Village discovered in 1964, situated in Lantian County on the Loess Plateau. The former dates to about 710–684 thousand years ago, and the latter 1.65–1.59 million years ago. This makes Lantian Man the second-oldest firmly dated H. erectus beyond Africa, and the oldest in East Asia. The fossils were first described by Woo Ju-Kan in 1964, who considered the subspecies an ancestor to Peking Man.
Yuanmou Man is a subspecies of H. erectus which inhabited the Yuanmou Basin in Yunnan Province, southwestern China, roughly 1.7 million years ago. It is the first fossil evidence of humans in China, though they probably reached the region by at least 2 million years ago. Yuanmou Man is known only from two upper first incisors presumed to have belonged to a male, and a partial tibia presumed to have belonged to a female. The female may have stood about 123.6–130.4 cm in life. These remains are anatomically quite similar to those contemporary early Homo in Africa, namely H. habilis and H. (e?) ergaster.
Sangiran 2 is a fossilized upper cranium of a Homo erectus. It was discovered in Sangiran, Indonesia by G.H.R. von Koenigswald in 1937.
Prehistoric Asia refers to events in Asia during the period of human existence prior to the invention of writing systems or the documentation of recorded history. This includes portions of the Eurasian land mass currently or traditionally considered as the continent of Asia. The continent is commonly described as the region east of the Ural Mountains, the Caucasus Mountains, the Caspian Sea, Black Sea and Red Sea, bounded by the Pacific, Indian, and Arctic Oceans. This article gives an overview of the many regions of Asia during prehistoric times.
Homo erectus is an extinct species of archaic human from the Pleistocene, with its earliest occurrence about 2 million years ago. Its specimens are among the first recognizable members of the genus Homo.
Several expansions of populations of archaic humans out of Africa and throughout Eurasia took place in the course of the Lower Paleolithic, and into the beginning Middle Paleolithic, between about 2.1 million and 0.2 million years ago (Ma). These expansions are collectively known as Out of Africa I, in contrast to the expansion of Homo sapiens (anatomically modern humans) into Eurasia, which may have begun shortly after 0.2 million years ago.
The Trinil H. K. Fauna, or Trinil Haupt Knochenschicht Fauna is a biostratigraphic faunal assemblage. It is another interpretation of the collection of fossils gathered by Eugène Dubois at Trinil, where he discovered the early hominid fossils of Java Man. It was proposed in the 1980s a group of Dutch paleontologists to reassess the date of the layer in which Java Man was found.
The region of Southeast Asia is considered a possible place for the evidence of archaic human remains that could be found due to the pathway between Australia and mainland Southeast Asia, where the migration of multiple early humans has occurred out of Africa. One of many pieces of evidence is of the early human found in central Java of Indonesia in the late 19th century by Eugene Dubois, and later in 1937 at Sangiran site by G.H.R. van Koenigswald. These skull and fossil materials are Homo erectus, named Pithecanthropus erectus by Dubois and Meganthropus palaeojavanicus by van Koenigswald. They were dated to c. 1.88 and 1.66 Ma, as suggested by Swisher et al. by analysis of volcanic rocks.
The Kabuh Formation is a Plio-Pleistocene geologic formation from Central Java, consisting of several unnamed members belonging to the Kendeng Group. Many of the fossils discovered from Sambungmacan belonging to this group were discovered in an accumulated sediment deposit in a flood-controlling canal near the Solo River, including a series of hominin crania that are similar in anatomy and geologically younger than the Ngandong hominins upstream. This area was excavated throughout the 1970s.