On This Day In History: Eugène Dubois Who Discovered Remains Of Java Man Was Born – On Jan 28, 1858

AncientPages.com - On January 28, 1858, Eugène Dubois was born in Eijsden, Netherlands. Dubois - a Dutch anatomist, geologist, anthropologist, and paleontologist was famous for having discovered remains of Java man.

Two social species at Dmanisi. (a) altruistic behaviour of a group of Homo erectus sharing food with an individual who lived several years without teeth (as evidenced by edentulous skull D3444 and associated mandible D3900). This severe masticatory impairment would limit the diet of the individual to foodstuffs that did not require heavy chewing (e.g., soft plants, animal brain and marrow) or that were orally processed before by others. Image credit: Bartolini-Lucenti, S et al. - CC BY 4.0

The discovered Java Man was the first known fossil of Homo erectus.

Dubois was the son of a pharmacist and was fascinated by natural history at an early age. After hearing a lecture by physiologist Karl Vogt, the young Dubois was obsessed with finding the missing link that united humankind with apes. He studied medicine at the University of Amsterdam and became a doctor of anatomy in 1884.

He was the first scientist who deliberately searched for fossils of human ancestors.

Today we know that humans are more closely related to gorillas and chimpanzees. Still, Dubois took on both orangutans, and humans have thumb holes, and gibbons can walk on two legs, are monogamous, and have low sexual dimorphism.

Eugene Dubois  (1858 – 1940), a Dutch paleoanthropologist and geologist. Image credit: Woudloper  - Public Domain

He believed that man's original home was in Southeast Asia, not Africa. In 1885, he traveled to the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) to find the link between man and apes. He worked as a medical officer at a military hospital in Sumatra between 1888 and 1895 during the Dutch colonial rule.

In Oct 1891, Dubois discovered three fossils of Java Man as Homo erectus was then called, and the discovery was made near the village Trinil.

The fossils consisted of animal caps, a femur, and a few molars, but Dubois was convinced that he had found the missing link.

It was the first evidence of human evolution, and some of his colleagues supported him. However,  he was met with great skepticism. Among the skeptics was also Rudolf Virchow, a German physician, anthropologist, and pathologist known as "the father of modern pathology."

Dubois was profoundly disappointed and buried the finds on its earth floor, refused to show them to anyone, and struck new paths professionally. He was appointed in 1899 as a professor of geology and paleontology in Amsterdam.

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