Page 191 - The Evolution Impasse 1

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Java Man

In 1891, Eugene Dubois, who had
dedicated himself to searching for the
theory of evolution’s so-called missing
link, discovered a skull fragment on the
shores of the River Solo on the island of
Java in Indonesia. Dubois believed that
this skull possessed both human and si-
mian (ape-like) properties. A year later,
he discovered a thigh bone some 15 me-
ters from where he had found the top of
the cranium and concluded that this
thigh bone—which was very similar to
those of human beings—and the skull
might have belonged to the same body.
Based on these two pieces of bone,
he adopted the idea that this fossil might
be a transitional form and gave it an im-
pressive scientific name: Pithecanthro-
pus erectus, or “upright-walking ape-
man.” Popularly referred to as Java Man,
the fossil had a skull volume of around
900 cubic centimeters and was sugges-
ted to be around 500,000 years old.
Dubois thought that the Trinil stra-
tum in which the fossil was found was
underneath the border between the Pleis-
tocene and Pliocene (Tertiary) periods;
and was certain that human beings had
evolved during the Middle Pleistocene.
For that reason, according to Dubois, the
age of Java Man was entirely compatible
with its being the missing link. Howe-
ver, Dubois had prepared a study of the
Javanese fossil fauna before he discove-
red that fossil—which study totally con-
tradicted the information was to provide

Harun Yahya (Adnan Oktar)