john hawks weblog

paleoanthropology, genetics and evolution

Sangiran

  • Asian Homo erectus

    Mon, 2011-11-07 23:59 -- John Hawks
    Synopsis: 
    Examining a sample of crania from the Early and Middle Pleistocene of Asia and Indonesia

    Homo erectus entered Asia as early as 1.8 million years ago. One of the earliest specimens of the species is the Modjokerto skull, from Java. The spread of this species across the tropical Old World was a major event in our evolution. After Homo erectus reached East and Southeast Asia, it had a long history — up to 200,000 years ago or even more recently.

    This station has several representatives of this Asian dispersal of early humans.

    • Trinil 2, Java, 1.2 million years old.
    • Sangiran 2, Java, 1.0 million years old.
    • Zhoukoudian L2, China, 700,000 years old.
    • Zhoukoudian L1, China, 700,000 years old.
    • Ngandong 10, Java, 200,000 years old.
    • Ngandong 8, Java, 200,000 years old.
    • Nganding 4, Java, 200,000 years old.

    What to do: Overall, these fossils are very similar. However, they come from a wide range of times. Make an attempt to seriate the fossils by cranial size. List the results of your seriation. Does it correlate with time?

    Try seriating the skulls according to the form of their frontal bone or supraorbital torus. This feature differs between fossil specimens from Java and China. Does your seriation indicate this difference in geography?

    Study terms: 
    Zhoukoudian
    Sangiran
    Ngandong
    Trinil
    seriation
    Tags: 
    Anthropology 105
    laboratory
    Homo erectus
    Asia
    China
    Indonesia
    Sangiran
    Zhoukoudian

  • Oh, the meganthropy!

    Mon, 2009-11-23 01:21 -- John Hawks

    Taxonomic confusion afflicts a hapless victim hunting for Homo erectus:

    In the seeming middle-of-nowhere, we found a monumental, but rather neglected, concrete marker to another even earlier hominid, Meganthropus paleojavanicus, who lived there around 1.5 million years ago.

    But it was all, it has to be said, a bit of an anti-climax.

    A somewhat more helpful report on the Sangiran Museum can be found at Planet Mole.

    Tags: 
    Java
    Homo erectus
    Sangiran
Subscribe to Sangiran

Neandertals

For years, I've worked on their bones. Now I'm working on their genes. Read more about the science studying these ancient people.

Denisova

From a finger bone of an ancient human came the record of a completely unexpected population. My lab is working on the science of the Denisova genome.

Acceleration

The advent of agriculture caused natural selection to speed up greatly in humans. We're uncovering some of the ways that populations have rapidly changed during the last 10,000 years.

Malapa

Just outside Johannesburg, the Malapa site is producing some of the most exciting finds in human evolution. This site is the headquarters of the Malapa Soft Tissue Project.