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perfectly fit the braincase. But following von Koenigswald’s statement came a statement by Krantz saying that his own measurement of the palate width was correct and was identical to Weidenreich’s 1945 measurement of 94 millimeters. According to Krantz, before the upper jaw was discovered it was broken through the socket of the first left incisor; then the greater part of its left half was shifted toward the midline and fossilized in that position. Krantz reported that both he (working in the 1970s) and Weidenreich (working in 1945) realized this and moved the left part of this upper jaw back to its original position. Krantz pointed out that von Koenigswald apparently measured the fossil in its distorted condition (without moving the left half back) and that von Koenigswald’s measurement was therefore wrong. Following Krantz’s statement there was no published reply by von Koenigswald. it seems, therefore, that von Koenigswald was wrong in his measurement and that Krantz was correct. This supports Krantz’s contention that the upper jaw does not belong to the same individual as the rear braincase.

According to Krantz, the teeth in the upper jaw were positioned like those in the upper jaw of an ape such as an orangutan. Krantz (1975, p. 369) therefore proposed “that the palate previously related to the Javan Homo erectus skull iv should be removed from this association” and “assigned to the genus Pongo, large Asiatic apes.” If Krantz’s assessment is correct, then both Weidenreich and von Koenigswald were apparently unable to distinguish an ape palate from a Homo erectus palate. this is especially damaging to Weidenreich’s skull reconstruction, which included the questionable palate.

7.3.7 More Discoveries by Von Koenigswald

West of trinil there is an area where the Kabuh formation comes to the surface. At this location primitive stone tools are also present. von Koenigswald (1940b) stated that in this area a fragment of a heavy mandible (S5 in table 7.2, p. 498) came to light in 1939.

By now the reader may be hoping that there might be a detailed report of the strata in which this fossil was discovered so that a proper date can be assigned to it. Such hopes must remain unfulfilled in this case. Von Koenigswald (1949b, p. 110) stated explicitly that this fossil was called “Pithecanthropus dubius” because its original position was unknown. in a later report, von Koenigswald (1968a, p. 102) flatly admitted that this fossil was a surface find. He thought that it must originally have come from the Black clay stratum of the putjangan formation, but he was not sure. therefore, this fossil cannot be assigned to a particular point in geological time, which makes it next to useless as paleoanthropological evidence.

in 1941, one of von Koenigswald’s native collectors, at Sangiran, sent to him, at Bandung, a fragment of a gigantic lower jaw (S6 in table 7.2, p. 498). According to von Koenigswald (1956, p. 111), it displayed the unmistakable features of a human ancestor’s jaw. He named the jaw’s owner Meganthropus palaeojavanicus (“giant man of ancient Java”) because the jaw was twice the size of a typical modern human jaw.

von Koenigswald believed that the S6 jaw was discovered in the putjangan formation near the site where the Modjokerto child’s skull was found. A careful search of original reports has not revealed a description of the exact location at which the S6 jaw was found, or who discovered it. if von Koenigswald did report the exact circumstances of this find then it is a well-kept secret. He discussed Meganthropus in at least three reports (von Koenigswald 1956, pp. 111–113; 1949a, p. 92; 1949b, p. 107); however, in none of these did he inform the reader of the details of the fossil’s original location. All he said was that it came from the putjangan formation, but no further information was supplied. Hence all we really know for certain is that some unnamed collector mailed a jaw fragment to von Koenigswald. Its age, from a strictly scientific standpoint, remains a mystery.

Meganthropus, in the opinion of von Koenigswald,