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there are several reasons why one should be hesitant to accept that the S15 jaw was contemporaneous with the putjangan formation. First, the credibility of the collector is unknown. He might have obtained this bone from any place where there is a grey clay stone. Second, even if S15 was discovered at the site reported above, because it was found on the surface it may not have been originally a part of the putjangan beds at this point. Holmes or Hrdlicka, confronted with evidence for anatomically modern human beings in a situation like this, would probably have proclaimed that the fossil had been recently introduced. As always, our point is that a double standard should not be employed in the evaluation of paleoanthropological evidence—an impossibly strict standard for anomalous evidence and an exceedingly lenient standard for acceptable evidence.

Sartono (1972) reported that on September 13, 1969, Mr. towikromo, a resident of the village of putjung, accidentally discovered a fossil hominid skull when his plow broke through its crest. According to Sartono (1972, p. 124), the skull (S17 in table 7.2, p. 498) had a low vault.

there are several aspects of Sartono’s 1972 report that seem unclear. Sartono stated that Mr. towikromo was using an iron tool for cultivation of his land when his tool contacted the skull. Sartono also stated explicitly that the skull was embedded in the Kabuh beds, which are here made of sandstone. Sartono (1972, p. 124) said: “this sandstone forms the base of the blind valley and contains the skull.”

it does not seem probable that the farmer was plowing sandstone. perhaps the lower part of the skull was embedded in the very topmost layer of the Kabuh sandstone, and the upper part of the skull was projecting up into a thin, recently deposited layer of soil that was being cultivated. this may be true, but Sartono (1972) did not state this in his report. It is also not clear just how firmly the skull was embedded in the sandstone layer. perhaps it belonged entirely to a recent soil layer. We must bear in mind that Sartono did not find this skull himself. It is therefore quite possible that it was not firmly embedded in the Kabuh sandstone.

in order to clear up these uncertainties in Sartono’s 1972 report, letters were written in 1985 to both him and to t. Jacob for further information about this and several other important discoveries reported by them from Java. no answers were received. One can easily find dozens of popular books describing Homo erectus and how this hominid lived between 0.5 and 2 million years ago in Java, but finding a report describing how a particular fossil was situated when discovered is often quite difficult. Many of the popular books do not describe the original situation of the fossil. nor do they give references to reports by the original discoverer. Sometimes these books do give references to reports. But upon reading these reports, one finds no information about the original position of the fossil. Sometimes the references are to reports in journals that are not easily found even at the libraries of major universities. It is therefore often difficult to obtain information describing the original stratigraphic position of a fossil. this means that the fossil cannot be properly assigned a geological age, and if it cannot be assigned a geological age it cannot be inserted into a proposed evolutionary sequence. nevertheless, this is exactly what has been done.

7.5 Chemical and Radiometric Datingof The Java Homo Erectus Finds

We shall now discuss issues related to the potassium-argon dating of the formations yielding hominid fossils in Java, as well as attempts to date the fossils themselves by various chemical and radiometric methods. See Appendix 1 for general information about these methods.

7.5.1 The Ages of the Kabuh and Putjangan Formations

in the foregoing discussion, we have several times referred to the Kabuh formation and the putjangan formation.