Trinil 2

Trinil 2

Exhibit item

Nickname: 

Java Man

Site: 

Trinil, Java, Indonesia

Date of discovery: 

1891

Discovered by: 

Eugene Dubois

Age: 

Between 1 million and 700,000 years old

Species: 

Homo erectus

Indonesia's "Java Man"

While searching for fossils in Java, physician Eugène Dubois uncovered the tophalf of an early human skull in 1891. This skull, Trinil 2, is long, with a flat forehead and distinct browridges and a sagittal keel, though many of its features have been worn flat with age. Dubois named a new species, Pithecanthropus erectus after this specimen in 1894, but Ernst Mayr reassigned Trinil 2 to Homo erectus in the 1950s.

Image Credit: Matt Finarelli, Human Origins Program