VOL.

99
SCIENCE FRIDAY, JuNE 16, 1944 No. 2581

Giant Early Man from Java and South China: DR. Special Articles:
FRANZ WEIDENRICH..........................................Abnormal Alpha Ketosteroid Excretion in Patients
On Naturally Occurring Porphyrins in the Central with Neoplastic Disease: DR. CORNELIUS P. RHOADS
Nervous Systemn: DR. HEINRICH KILtVER . 482 and OTHERS. The Nature of Myasthenia Gravis:
DR. HERBERT C. STOERK and ELVIRA MORPETH.
Obituary: Antityphoid Activity of Vi Antigen
Generic Sources: MAJOR GEORGE
from Extra-
F. LUIPPOLD ............. 494
Thomas Scott Fiske: PROFESSOR EDWARD KASNER.
Deaths and Memorials .............. ........................... 484 Scientific Apparatus and Laboratory Methods:
Scientific Events: An Apparatus for Measuring the Torsion Angle in
Long Bones: VERNON E. KRAHL .498
The Hawaiian Academy of Science; The School of
Public Health of the University of California; The Science News.10
Guthrie Lecture; Honors in the Sciences Awarded
by Columbia University .... .............. 485

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GIANT EARLY MAN FROM JAVA AND SOUTH CHINA'

JAVA, which stood in the focus of anthropologists up by Dubois from the Trinil beds of Kedung Brubus,
fifty years ago when Eugene Dubois first announced in 1891, and later attributed by this author to Pithe-
the find of the "missing link," Pithecanthropus erec- canthropus. Then followed the surprising discovery,
tus, became a cynosure again when Dr. R. von in 1938, of a skull cap-fragmentary too-but much
Koenigswald, of the Geological Survey of Netherlands more complete than Dubois' Trinil skull which it re-
Indies, made a series of discoveries, eaeci later one sembles as one egg another in general form as well
always more important than its predecessor. It be- as in details. This specimen proved beyond the slight-
gan, in 1937, with the discovery of a large fragment est doubt that Pithecanthropus is morphologically not
of a lower jaw found in the Trinil beds of Sangiran. a giant gibbon, and as such intermediate between ape
This jaw was much more complete than the one picked and man, as Dubois insisted, but a true hominid very
1 Read before the American Ethnological Society in like the Peking man, Sinanthro pus pekinensis. In
New York, May 9, 1944. The war and its consequences 1939, von Koenigswald's native collector picked up an
prevented Dr. R. von Koenigswald from announcing upper jaw from the same site from which the skull
the new discoveries referred to in this paper. Since
Java is cut off and neither Dr. von Koenigswald nor the cap of 1938 had come. This jaw, almost complete,
Geological Survey of Netherlands Indies are approachable, but slightly crushed, was the second surprise. It was
I asked the Board for the Netherlands Indies, Surinam in all dimensions larger than any known fossil or
and Curagao, which represents the government of Nether-
lands Indies, for an official permit to publish the material, recent human jaw; there was a fairly wide gap be-
being sure of Dr. von Koenigswald 's personal consent. tween the canine and the incisor; the canine was not
Mr. G. H. C. Hart, the chairman of the board, kindly ap- tusk-like but showed all the peculiarities of the Sinan-
proved the publication.
480 SCIENClE VOL. 99, No. 2581
thropus canines; the second molar was larger than in thickness, all that is known of any fossil or recent
the first and the third ones and, finally, the palate human jaw, including the famous Heidelberg jaw.
was smooth and not covered with rugosities. In other Contrarily to the latter, the teeth of the new jaw
words, the jaw exhibited several very distinct simian participate in this gigantism.
features beside its general human appearance, a com- Von Koenigswald, recognizing at once the human
bination never observed before. Some weeks later character of the fragment and, of course, also its
the calvaria to which the jaw belonged was recovered. gigantic proportions, gave the type the name Megan-
Although the entire frontal part is missing the rest is thropus palaeojavanicus. So far we have no other
impressive enough. The brain case is considerably word from von Koenigswald, but by labelling the
larger than that of the two Pithecanthropus skulls, specimen in this way he makes known that he con-
not because of greater capacity but as the result of siders the type represented by the jaw as a giant
the extraordinary massiveness of the bones and the hominid different from Pithecanthropus. The new
heaviness of the so-called superstructures, the enor- find not only introduces a completely new and unex-
mous occipital protuberance and a peculiar sagittal pected form into our collection of fossil hominids, it
crest which runs along the top of the skull. also compels us to revise our view about the uniform-
So the new skull considerably differed from the ity of the human fossils embedded in the volcanic
two Pithecanthropus skulls found earlier. But as von ashes and sands of the Trinil formation of Central
Koenigswald and-myself were still under the spell Java. As a first consequence of the new knowledge
that all human remains gathered from the Trinil for- we have to scrutinize again the big skull of 1939 which
mation of Java must belong to the Pithecanthropus we ranked as a male individual among the Pithecan-
type, we declared the big, massive skull to be male thropus group. This skull is not a true giant form
and the two smaller and less massive ones to be when compared with the proportion of the new jaw,
females. This was all the easier as no other upper for the Meganthropus jaw is much too large and mas-
jaw and upper teeth of Pithecanthropus were known. sive for it. Yet compared with the two "female"
But soon I felt a little less sure of this decision when skulls found earlier, the big skull already shows a
von Koenigswald informed me several months later clear tendency toward gigantism and as such appears
that a new fragment of a lower jaw had been recov- intermediate between Dubois' Pithecanthropus erectus
ered from the same locality, but obviously from a and von Koenigswald's Meganthropus palaeojavani-
larger jaw than that of 1937. Unfortunately, this new cus. In order to emphasize this peculiar position I
jaw is very defective, in particular in the canine and have proposed to call this intermediate type Pithecan-
premolar regions, so that it is quite impossible to thropus robustus.
determine the real nature of this specimen as long as When we make an inventory of all the lower or
nothing but a cast is available. However, one thing upper jaws of hominids recovered from the Trinil
seems to be sure. If it is an anthropoid as it appears beds, we face the singular and certainly surprising
to be, then this anthropoid is not only much shorter fact that all four differ in size, the smallest being the
snouted than any known anthropoid but also has some so-called Pithecanthropus erectus of Kedung Brubus,
undoubtedly human-like features. If it is a hominid, the largest the Meganthropus jaw, while the lower
then it has some simian features not encountered so jaw of 1937 and the upper jaw of Pithecanthropus
far in hominids. However this may be, Java and Dr. robustus fit in between the two extremes, the former
von Koenigswald provided us, in 1941, with an addi- again a little smaller than the latter. As these dif-
tional and still more important find which follows the ferences in size go hand in hand with differences in
same line as already indicated by the previous ones, morphological characteristics-the larger one is in
but is so unambiguous in its morphological character general more primitive than the succeeding smaller
that it can help us without resorting, for the moment, one-it is obvious that we have before us a group of
to the ambiguous jaw of 1939. closely related types each derivable from the other in
This new and so far latest discovery, with which the sequence of their size.
we were becoming acquainted just before the occupa- Before we enter into a discussion of how this fits
tion of Java by the Japanese cut all ways of communi- in with the scheme of phylogenetic evolution of man
cation, is again the fragment of a lower jaw. It is un- and the available geological data, we must refer to
doubtedly a human jaw, but the features which render another discovery Dr. von Koenigswald has made, this
certain this identification reveal such an early state time not in Java but in South China. Aware of the
that they stamp this jaw as the most primitive human well-known fact that the drawers of Chinese apothe-
skeleton part ever found. However, this is not the caries are places where you can count on gathering
only revolutionary disclosure. Not less momentous is rare fossil teeth and bones, he used to hunt for those
the fact that this jaw exceeds by far in size, especially curios whenever he passed through China. He was
JUNE 16, 1944 SIENCES 481
fortunate enough to secure three strange teeth in this basis for calculation. Nevertheless, it seems safe to
way, between 1934 and 1939, each time in chemist's say that Gigantopithecus considerably exceeded Meg-
shops in Hong Kong. The first acquired tooth, rather anthropus in size and robustness.
considerably worn but still recognizable, was a right The next question which arises is, of course, as to
lower molar without roots,- but of gigantic propor- whether there is any evidence of connection between
tions. In the same drawers there were, among other the giant hominids from Java and China, and, if so,
teeth and bones, teeth of stegodon, tapir and orang- what kind of connection exists. In spite of the defi-
utang, most of them without roots, but with indication ciency of the material in both cases, and although we
that they were gnawed off. Von Koenigswald deter- seemingly do not know more of the provenance of the
mined the big molar to be the tooth of an anthropoid Gigantopithecus teeth than the fact that they were
and called it Gigantopithecus blacki. However, von gathered from drawers of a chemist's shop, we are
Koenigswald was unable to say more about this tooth, surprisingly well off if we follow the traces provided
but it was evident to him that it has no close relation- by the conditions of the teeth. Teeth of stegodon,
ship to any of the known living or fossil anthropoids. tapir and orang-utang with defective roots are com-
The next tooth, acquired some years later, was an mon articles of commerce in South Chinese apothe-
upper molar also without roots but much less worn; caries and come from caves in the Provinces of
and the latest acquired was again a third lower molar Kwangsi, Yunnan or Szechuan, where they ffepre-
but this time a left one and only very slightly worn. sent the characteristic leading fossils of the so-called
The posterior root was preserved, the anterior broken "yellow deposits."2 The same fauna is characteristic
or gnawed off. The degree of wear proves that the of the Trinil beds in Java, for which reason it has
two third molars had belonged to two different indi- been called the "Sino-Malayan" fauna. Gigantopithe-
viduals. Thus, Gigantopithecus is represented so far cus is apparently the hominid member of this faunistic
by two or eventually three adult individuals. But the association in South China, as are Meganthropus and
gist of the whole story, which arouses our foremost the Pithecanthropus group in Java. The "yellow
interest, is the fact that Gigantopithecus is not a giant deposits" in the South China caves belong geologically
ape, as von Koenigswald assumed, but a giant man to the Lower or Middle Pleistocene. The Trinil beds
and should, therefore, be called "Gigantanthro pus." in Java which yielded all the hominid material we
This follows beyond any doubt from the very char- have spoken of are also considered as Middle Pleisto-
acteristic pattern of the occlusal surface of the teeth, cene formations. But there is evidence that at least
which differs fundamentally in the structure of the one early hominid form, the baby skull of Modjokerto
cusps from that of any known anthropoids but agrees recovered by the Geological Survey of Netherlands
even in the minutest details with the hominid pattern Indies in 1936, goes down to the Djetis bed, which
as shown by the molars of Pithecanthropus, Sinan- belongs to the Lower Pleistocene. On the other hand,
thropus and even modern man. On the other hand, the determination of the Trinil beds as Middle Pleis-
the form of the teeth, especially that of the third tocene does not exclude the possibility that some of
lower molar, and the condition of its root indicate that the fossils embedded in the layers are in reality older
it has preserved a very primitive character, much and washed into the beds by torrents and mud streams
more primitive than the known third molars of any which accompanied volcanic eruptions very frequently
fossil hominid. Therefore, we have the same combina- during this whole geological period.
tion which struck us in the human fossils of Java; As the Sino-Malayan fauna immigrated into Java
namely, primitiveness together with gigantic propor- from the Asiatic continent, the different hominid
tions. But in the case of Gigantopithecus the gigan- forms, and certainly the most primitive ones, must
tism reaches a new climax. The volume of the crown have taken the same way. This may have happened
of the third lower molar is about six times larger than in the Late Pliocene or in the Lower Pleistocene, at
the average crown of modern man; compared with which time south-east Asia apparently was a seat of
the corresponding tooth of the gorilla, it is about twice human evolution. Therefore, neither geological nor
as large. morphological facts can be produced against the as-
In the case of the Javanese Meganthropus with a sumption that Gigantopithecus is an ancestral hominid
considerable part of the jaw preserved, we can risk 2 Dr. C. C. Young, of the Geological Survey of China,
computing the probable size of the skull and the body. my collaborator at the Cenozoic Research Laboratory in
If a gorilla is taken as standard size we shall not Peiping, who has just arrived in this country from Chung-
fail much in estimating that Meganthropus reached king, informs me that, according to investigations during
the last few years, the caves containing the "yellow de-
the size, stoutness and strength of a big male gorilla. posits" are widely distributed over the whole territory of
Concerning Gigantopithecus we are more in the dark, South China south of the Yangtse River extending east-
wards even to the coast, and that their fauna have the
because the lower and the upper molars are the only same character everywhere.
482 SCIENCE VoL. 99, No. 2581

form which has been reduced in size and massiveness forces itself upon the mind has to be postponed until
as it developed in the direction of modern man. further evidences are at hand. Are gigantism and
Sinanthropus pekinensis is morphologically so close massiveness indispensable features of the earliest
to Pithecanthropus erectus that he can be regarded mankind and, consequently, characteristic of all
as a parallel form of the latter. Sinanthropus may human forms; or have they to be regarded as acci-
have taken its origin also from Gigantopithecus, with dental, regional or individual variations as they occur
the only difference that in this case his transformation in other mammalian groups ? The occurrence of
may have taken place on the mainland of Asia itself large fossil human skulls with very thick individual
to the north of the original center. bones in early or late stages, for instance in Homo
All this is, of course, hypothetical and must be soloensis, Homo rhodesiensis and in the Heidelberg
verified by additional and more complete material, jaw, seem to indicate that gigantism and massiveness
and particularly by stratigraphic work on the sites may have been a general or at least a wide-spread
concerned. Also the answer to another question which character of early mankind.3

ON NATURALLY OCCURRING PORPHYRINS IN THE

WE have found that the fluorescence spectrum of caline, bulbocapnine, metrazol, quinine, harmine or
the white matter of the central nervous system, in strychnine. Furthermore, an emission band in the
numerous animals, reveals a well-defined emission red region remains present in the white matter: (1)
band at 630-620 mpt with a maximum at about 625 m>t. after immersion in liquid nitrogen, (2) after boiling
When the brain and spinal cord of an adult rat are for 1 hour in distilled water, (3) after irradiation
examined under the light of a mercury vapor lamp with 200 r or 2,000 r of x-rays and (4) after several
which has passed through a Corning filter No. 5874, weeks in darkness at room temperature. Exposure
the reddish fluorescence of the spinal cord is found of the white matter to light, however, leads to a dis-
to contrast strikingly with the greenish fluorescence appearance of the 625 band.
of the cerebral and cerebellar cortex. When portions In examining the brains- and spinal cords from ani-
of white matter are removed from larger mammals, mals of 33 different species, the 625 band has been
such as freshly killed monkeys, dogs or pigs, and ex- found to be present in the white matter of all the
amined, the 625 emission band is found to appear in following 25 species of mammals and birds studied:
the funiculi of the spinal cord, the fiber tracts of the man, rhesus monkey, green monkey, cebus monkey,
pons and medulla oblongata, the medullary center and spider monkey, squirrel monkey, common brown bat,
laminae of the cerebellum, the cerebral and cerebellar cat, dog, rabbit, guinea pig, rat, mouse, pig, ox, sheep,
peduncles, the internal and external capsules, the goat, hartebeest, Grant's gazelle, opossum, common
corpus callosum, the fornix, the anterior commissure, rhea, duck, chicken, pigeon and great horned owl.
the optic chiasm, the centrum semiovale and the medul- On the other hand, we have been unable to detect the
lary centers of the frontal, parietal, occipital and tem- 625 band in any of the following 8 species of fully
poral lobes. The cortex and the basal ganglia, with grown amphibians or reptiles: leopard frog, bull frog,
the exception of the globus pallidus, exhibit a con- iguana, gila monster, Texas collared lizard, bull snake,
tinuous fluorescence spectrum (about 630-430 mi). milk snake and indigo snake. It seems,* therefore, that
The 625 band, although relatively weak, is found to the fluorescence spectrum indicates the presence of a
be present in the globus pallidus, thalamus and lateral fundamental constituent of the white substance of
geniculate body. warm-blooded animals. The position of the band and
Spectroscopic examination reveals the presence of the fact that the spectrum is one of Dhere's2 Type I
the 625 band-even in the white matter of a live animaL strongly suggest a porphyrin.
After death, the band is still present in animals killed In an attempt to extract and identify naturally
with ether, chloroform, carbon monoxide, pentobar- 3 For details, illustrations and references the reader is
bital sodium, lactic acid, methylene blue, insulin, mes- referred to a paper of mine in preparation which will be
published under the same title in the "Anthropological
1 This research has been aided by a grant from the Papers of the American Museum of Natural History,"
Committee for Research in Dementia Praecox founded Vol. 40.
by the Supreme Council 330, Scottish Rite, Northern 2 0. Dhr6, "La fluorescence en biochimie." Paris,
Masonic Jurisdiction, U. S.. A. 1937.