The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Pithecanthropus

an individual of a group (Pithecanthropus) of ancient humans—the Archanthropines. Pithecanthropoid bones have been found on Java. The first remains—a skull cap, a femur, and teeth—were discovered in 1890–92 by the Dutch anthropologist E. Dubois. By 1973, skull fragments, lower jaws, femur fragments, and teeth from more than 20 individuals had been found. Of particular interest is a skull with an intact facial skeleton, which was discovered in 1969.

The pithecanthropi had a fully erect gait and a large (averaging 900 cc), complex brain. The low skull was sharply angulate in back. There was a prominent brow ridge and a jawbone with a receding chin. The Pithecanthropus, along with the Sinanthropus, the Atlanthropus, the Heidelberg man, and the Oldoway man, has been assigned to the species Homo erectus. The age of the Pithecanthropus had been estimated at 500,000 to 700,000 years until 1972, when new data placed it as far back as 1.2 million years.

REFERENCE

Uryson, M. I. “Pitekantropy, sinantropy i blizkie im formy gominid.” In the collection Iskopaemye gominidy i proiskhozhdenie cheloveka. Moscow, 1966.

V. P. IAKIMOV

Mentioned in

References in periodicals archive

Until this point, the most primitive hominid known was Pithecanthropus erectus, discovered by Dubois (see 1890).

Australopithecus

Short stories (selected titles): Manly Wade Wellman, Pithecanthropus Rejectus, 1938; Robert Bloch, Mannikins of Horror, 1939; Karl Edward Wagner, Undertow, 1977; R.

Frankenstein: the myth of dark creation

Observations upon two Pithecanthropus mandibles from Sangiran, Central Java.

The Solo (Ngandong) Homo erectus assemblage: a taphonomic assessment

In 1887, a Dutch doctor by the name of Eugene Dubois (1858-1940) decided to leave his job as a professor of anatomy at the Universiteit Amsterdam to go to what were then the Dutch East Indies, in search of that hypothetical species which Ernst Haeckel (1834-1919) had christened Pithecanthropus alalus, the speechless human-ape which, according to Haeckel had to be the link between the other primates and humans.

The biosphere in the human age

There are the long narrative tales ("Pithecanthropus Erectus"), which reach beyond Ellingtonian suites in structure and in their development of jazz-derived, extended forms.

The Dynasty of Mingus

Dubois called the organism Pithecanthropus erectus (erect ape-human), since the thighbone was sufficiently human to signify that the hominid had walked erect as we do.

Java Man