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was a giant offshoot from the main line of human evolution. Von Koenigswald had also found some large humanlike fossil teeth, which he attributed to an even larger creature called Gigantopithecus. According to von Koenigswald, Gigantopithecus was a large and relatively recent ape. But Weidenreich, after examining the Meganthropus jaws and the Gigantopithecus teeth, came up with another theory. He proposed that both creatures were direct human ancestors. According to Weidenreich, Homo sapiens evolved from Gigantopithecus by way of Meganthropus and Pithecanthropus (Simons and ettel 1970, p. 77). each species was smaller than the next. Most modern authorities, however, consider Gigantopithecus to be a variety of ape, living in the Middle to early pleistocene, and not directly related to humans. the Meganthropus jaws are now thought to be much more like those of Java man (Homo erectus) than von Koenigswald originally believed. Some researchers, however, have suggested that Meganthropus fossils might be classified as Australopithecus (Jacob 1973, p. 475). this is intriguing, because according to standard opinion, Australopithecus never left its African home.

7.4 Later Discoveries In Java

Meganthropus was the last major discovery reported by von Koenigswald, but the search for more bones of Java man has continued up to the present. We shall now discuss the most important of the later finds, which are uniformly accepted as evidence for Homo erectus in the Javanese Middle and early pleistocene ( Le Gros clark and campbell 1978, p. 94). the discoveries were all made in the Sangiran region.

in September 1952, p. Marks, a member of the science faculty at the University of indonesia at Bandung, happened to pass by the fossil beds at Sangiran, at which time a local villager handed him a large fragment of a heavily fossilized mandible (S8 in Table 7.2, p. 498). Later, Marks analyzed this mandible and concluded it belonged to von Koenigswald’s Meganthropus. Marks (1953, p. 26) stated that the jaw fragment was found lying loose on the surface north of the village of Glagahombo, on a slope of strongly cemented conglomerate, consisting mainly of small pebbles of volcanic origin. numerous fragments of vertebrate bones were present within this conglomerate. Marks noted that the material clinging to the S8 jaw fragment was of the same type as the conglomerate of the slope. He added, however, that it was not possible “to collect associated vertebrate remains of stratigraphical value.” From the information provided by Marks in his report, one cannot assign a specific age to this fossil. In light of this, it is surprising that Marks advocated that this fossil was from the Middle pleistocene Kabuh formation and that this judgement is accepted without question by other modern authorities.

in 1960, near the village of Mlandingan in the vicinity of Sangiran, a villager discovered a highly fossilized right mandible (S9 in Table 7.2, p. 498) on the surface of a hill slope. the bones of other vertebrates had also been discovered in this area. the S9 fossil consisted of the right half of the jaw and contained five teeth. T. Jacob, of the department of physical anthropology at Gadjah Madah University in Jogjakarta, indonesia, proposed that the S9 mandible belonged to one of the species of Pithecanthropus.

this right mandible was incrusted by a matrix containing foraminifera (small marine organisms) that S. Sartono (1974) reported were exactly the same as the foraminifera of the putjangan formation, which is considered older than the Middle pleistocene Kabuh formation (Section 7.5.1).

Jacob (1964) reported that in August 1963 an indonesian farmer discovered fragments of a fossilized skull “in the Sangiran dome area while working in the field.” When assembled, these skull fragments formed what appeared to be a skull (S10 in table 7.2, p. 498) similar to the type that is designated as Homo erectus.

Although Jacob stated that this skullcap was deposited in the Kabuh formation during the Middle pleistocene, he gave no more information than “a farmer