Solo Man
Solo Man (Homo erectus soloensis) is a subspecies of Homo erectus, identified based on fossil evidence of 18 specimens discovered between 1931 and 1933 by Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald[1] from sites along the Solo River, on the Indonesian island of Java, dated to between 116,000 and 108,000 years old.[2][3] The remains are also commonly referred to as Ngandong (now at Kradenan district, Blora Regency), after the village near where they were first recovered, and older remains located at Bapang.
Solo Man | |
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Cast of Ngandong 13 from the National Museum of Natural History | |
Scientific classification | |
Kingdom: | Animalia |
Phylum: | Chordata |
Class: | Mammalia |
Order: | Primates |
Suborder: | Haplorhini |
Infraorder: | Simiiformes |
Family: | Hominidae |
Subfamily: | Homininae |
Tribe: | Hominini |
Genus: | Homo |
Species: | |
Subspecies: | H. e. soloensis |
Trinomial name | |
Homo erectus soloensis Oppenoorth, 1932 |
It is a late variant of H. erectus, dated to after 120,000 years ago, overlapping with Homo heidelbergensis and possibly with early Homo sapiens. Though its morphology was, for the most part, typical of Homo erectus, its cranial capacity of 1,013–1,251 cm³ places it amongst the larger-brained representatives of its species (compared to 900 cm³ for the older Java Man),[4] and its culture was also unusually advanced.[5][6]
Due to the tools found with the fossils and many of their more gracile anatomical features, Solo Man was first classified as a subspecies of Homo sapiens (dubbed Homo sapiens soloensis) and long thought to be the ancestor of modern Australo-Melanesians. More rigorous studies in the 1990s have concluded that this is not the case.[6] Analysis of 18 crania from Sangiran, Trinil, Sambungmacan, and Ngandong show chronological development from the Bapang-AG to Ngandong periods.[4]
See also
Notes
- Schwartz, Jeffrey H.; Tattersall, Ian (2005). The Human Fossil Record, Craniodental Morphology of Genus Homo (Africa and Asia). John Wiley & Sons. p. 450. ISBN 9780471326441.
- "Researchers determine age for last known settlement by a direct ancestor to modern humans". Nature.
- Rizal, Yan; Westaway, Kira E.; Zaim, Yahdi; van den Bergh, Gerrit D.; Bettis, E. Arthur; Morwood, Michael J.; Huffman, O. Frank; Grün, Rainer; Joannes-Boyau, Renaud; Bailey, Richard M.; Sidarto (January 2020). "Last appearance of Homo erectus at Ngandong, Java, 117,000–108,000 years ago". Nature. 577 (7790): 381–385. doi:10.1038/s41586-019-1863-2. ISSN 0028-0836. PMID 31853068.
- Kaifu, Y; Aziz, F; Indriati, E; Jacob, T; Kurniawan, I; Baba, H (Oct 2008). "Cranial morphology of Javanese Homo erectus: new evidence for continuous evolution, specialization, and terminal extinction". Journal of Human Evolution. 55 (4): 551–80. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.05.002. ISSN 0047-2484. PMID 18635247.
- Ngandong Archived 2007-02-08 at the Wayback Machine (Emuseum@Minnesota State University, Mankato)
- Brown, Peter (1992). "Recent human evolution in East Asia and Australasia". Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B: Biological Sciences. 337 (1280): 235–242. doi:10.1098/rstb.1992.0101. PMID 1357698.
External links
- Finding showing human ancestor older than previously thought offers new insights into evolution
- Morphology of Solo man Anthropological papers of the AMNH
- Early Indonesia content excerpted from Indonesia: A Country Study, William H. Frederick and Robert L. Worden , eds. Washington, DC: Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, 1992
- Human species before and after the genetic bottleneck associated with Toba, including details on the Java finds
- Huffman, O. Frank; de Vos, John; Berkhout, Aart W.; Aziz, Fachroel (2010). "Provenience Reassessment of the 1931-1933 Ngandong Homo erectus (Java), Confirmation of the Bone-Bed Origin Reported by the Discoverers". PaleoAnthropology. 2010: 1–60.
- Indriati, Etty (2011). "The Age of the 20 Meter Solo River Terrace, Java, Indonesia and the Survival of Homo erectus in Asia". PLoS ONE. 6: e21562. Bibcode:2011PLoSO...621562I. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0021562. PMC 3126814. PMID 21738710.
- Human Timeline (Interactive) – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History (August 2016).