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Bodies of Evidence

Case studies

Java Man

How old is Java Man?

In 1891 a Dutch doctor named Eugene Dubois went to the East Indies to investigate Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, which at the time was new and controversial. Excavating in the Wajak Mountains in East Java, a Dutch colony, he discovered part of the skull of a creature he at first believed to be an ape. Eleven months later, in August 1892, some distance away but at the same level as his original find, he discovered a femur or thigh bone.

Dubois believed that they came from the same creature and that the femur indicated that it had walked on two legs. He published his findings in 1894, claiming that this Homo erectus was an ancestor of modern humans that had lived about a million years ago. The assertion that human ancestors go back so far in time threatened both the scientific and religious orthodoxies of the day. The outcry became so intense that Dubois reburied his discoveries under his own house, where they remained for the next 30 years.

Today, Java Man is thought to be about 1.7 million years old, and is seen as a good example of Homo erectus, a distant ancestor of modern humans.

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