Will the Real Missing Link Please Stand Upright

To understand Dubois and the exposure of the Piltdown man, I think we have to look in depth at the information in the section “Where We Came From”.

Consider for a moment in the time of Darwin and more importantly of Wallace, orangutans, gorillas, and chimpanzees were just becoming known to western anatomists. Wallace was doing his research in Southeast Asia during the 1850’s. Late in the 19th century around 1890, a Dutch anatomist and medical doctor named Eugene Dubois was stationed in the East Indies (now known as Indonesia). His assigned role was that as a medical doctor for the military. However, his primary love was to search for human fossils. Much of the literature that discusses Dubois’ research centers on his research for early man in Asia. Little discussion is devoted to why the research was conducted in Asia. Dubois is now credited with finding the first fossilized remains of a sub category of bipedal hominid termed Homo Erectus. His find occurred on the island of Java in 1891. Just as the Neandertal finds had created trouble for the established understanding of humanity the new Erectus find would set the world on edge. Add to the mixture the circumstances of the find and eventually, Dubois would die a recluse no longer respected in his field. Probing into the circumstances that drove Dubois to reclusion provides some insight to our own understanding of race. By the beginning of the 20th Century evolutionary theory was just gaining tepid acceptance from the scientific community. The concept that man had evolved from a lower order animal was not the most popular idea within society as a whole.

Given the state of expansion of the British Empire, the influence of the European Cultures and the power of the Christian Church during the time, there was only one way the proverbial visitor at the door was going to be accepted into the castle of assigned dominance of the western culture. The Garden of Eden had to be located somewhere in the East or Europe. Be that Middle or Far East, it was clear the first man and woman had come from possibly Asia but hopefully Europe. The age of Chinese culture was well documented and it artifacts such as the Pyramids located in Egypt provided further suggestion that ancient man must have come from the Asian continent. Likewise more information was known about Orangutan than was known about Gorillas and Chimpanzees. Add to this that the research done by Owen indicated superficial physical attributes of Caucasians more similar to Orangutans than Gorillas.

Returning to our thoughts in the introduction of this book, we see that at this point the field research being conducted in anthropology was being led by thoughts established through political, popular and religious understandings. Although Dubois was willing to call the emperor naked to some degree, he lacked the complete ability to reach beyond many common misconceptions of human evolution. Dubois, like many other scientists at the time saw the evolution of the human races in what is now called the Candelabra Theory. In this theory, there is a clear line of evolution from primate to human. The Candelabra Theory early on suggested that anthropologist would find an animal that was clearly not human at the same time it was not ape either. The concept led to the term missing link.

The hardcore racist Candelabra theory takes this simplistic idea of evolution to extreme. The concept is presented in the following manner. At a early time there was a non-bipedal animal. This animal was some form of tree dwelling prosimian. Whites evolved from this prosimian a long time prior to blacks and some time shorter than Asians. With this method of understanding, the evidence of evolutionary theory could be not only acceptable to those that wanted to maintain the Western influence of dominance, but it also supplied “scientific” evidence that whites were superior to the other races. The problem is the Candelabra theory is not that simple. When we arose from the tree dwelling prosimian to our present understanding of humanness is still a complex story.

Even Dubois as early as 1890 new the Candelabra Theory was more difficult to understand than that which is presented by whites attempting to create scientific methods for their opinions. However, Dubois and other scientist at the time maintained that this crossing over had occurred as a distinct event that could be traced through the fossil record through osteomorphology. Dubois was a gifted anatomist that understood the physical dimensions of the human body. So in 1892 when he returned to the Netherlands with a skull cap, some molars and a femur he was sure that these items were neither from ape nor from human, but were from something that had resided in between. Dubois called the creature, Pithecanthropus erectus – literally translated the name means ape-human which stood upright. Here is where the whole story gets to be a bit sticky. Good science is never easy. Using prison labor on forced digs, and justification of dating determined by geological stratification matching simply were not enough for the scientist of the day. The bones were located almost a mile apart in a riverbank. The retrieval method was suspect. There was no way to insure the femur came from the same animal as the skull cap and molars and the diminutive size of a skull cap did not mean the animal was anything more than a diseased human. Even the scientist at the turn of the century recognized a tremendous gradation in human ostemetrics. Add to these complications the fact that there was already a sort of missing link called Neanderthal. With all these complications it is fair to say that Dubois received a less than enthusiastic support for his find. Those that received his work favorably seized the first opportunity to present their own view of the material. It was Dubois that fought the heat and humidity of the Java environment and it was Dubois that received the heat for the fossil finds. Those that inspected the fossils and wrote about the find enjoyed popular reviews.

Arguably Dubois was the first man to record in modern history the find of the missing link to evolution – Homo Erectus. His find and his interpretations would set off a firestorm of research and debate. But as all too often with science his propensity to stand ardently on the edge of a shale cliff resulted in his own personal demise. Dubois eventually became resistant to the idea of allowing others to review his find. The Dutch government had to insist that he release the material to other scientist and even then he was reticent to comply. Finally Dubois retired to his home in the Netherlands and became a recluse reportedly hiding the fossil finds in a china cabinet with newspaper over the glass. But the contribution to racial classification understanding does not end there with Dubois. Dubois made an even greater contribution than his missing link. The skullcap that Dubois identified was significantly smaller than a skullcap of a modern day human. To the average individual it is easy to respond that perhaps the skullcap was that of an adolescent or a young child and hence the size. However, there are several means to show this is not the case. The molars found near the skullcap provided insight into the age of the individual. Given the find occurred along the riverbank and the molars were not attached to the skullcap, one might claim there was no association of the two. At the time this was one of the arguments against the validity of Dubois’ find.

Let us consider for a moment Dubois’ finds and the critiques. Eugene Dubois had gathered using inmates a skullcap that was inferior in size to today’s modern human. At least the cap was inferior in size to an adult human. Near this skullcap he found several molars. The molars were clearly human in design, and presented typical wear of an adult. The first argument is that these molars were in no way associated with the skullcap. To further justify his claim Dubois had found a femur a year later located over a kilometer away from the skull. The debate still contends that neither the skullcap, nor the molars nor the femur are related. Given the forced labor of the excavations as opposed to more diligent paid labor, the limited quality of the record keeping process and coupled with the ramifications of the find, it is easy to cast the data aside as spurious bones washed along the river over time. Some argue to this day that each specimen could very well have come from different samples. Subsequently there was suggestably no reason to classify the skull as small for the age of the composite sample. Furthermore, now known but unrevealed by Dubois at the time, Dubois and his team of forced labor had unearthed several other more complete specimens that were quite modern in form. Despite these criticisms Dubois was convinced of his find and he maintained two reasons for his opinion.

The Java specimens were all located in the same geographical layer on the riverbank. This layer suggested the deposits were all made at the same time in the river’s history. Geographical stratification has long been a method of dating material. Although in the case of deposit layers it is clear that stratification layers can sometimes be confusing, the riverbank demonstrated none of these oddities (In future chapters we will discuss the ramifications of geographical dating at place called Klaises caves in South Africa.). But Dubois had more proof than the geographic stratification. The evidence that he held simply was not evident to the casual observer. This more convincing piece of scientific evidence came from Dubois’ own anecdotic and insightful observations. And perhaps this is where Dubois failed. Unlike Darwin who kept his critical thoughts quiet for 20 years and came perilously close to not being recognized for his work, Dubois revealed the most grandiose piece of his knowledge first. His most controversial component came before gaining critical acceptance of this lesser information first.

Dubois had recognized a critical piece of information that he would not share until late in his life. Dubois had noticed early in his career as an anatomist that there seemed to be a correlation between cranial volume and animal social ability. At the time of Dubois’s first find his data on cranial volume was little more than anecdotic. Given that his return to the Netherlands resulted in criticisms and questions of his scientific research ability when he thought it would bring unprecedented laude, he was certainly wise enough not to release his thoughts on yet another controversial thesis until he was sure of his position. In his efforts to support his find Dubois spent countless hours of his time researching this topic. Dubois in his lifetime found a direct correlation to cranial size and social ability in animals when cranial volume was normalized for body mass. Although Dubois was bitter with the scientific community when he completed his research, his theory of normalized brain to body mass became a well-accepted theory in the time to come.

This second piece of evidence could to the casual reader of this text still be explained through the idea that the skullcap was that of a child. However, to the clever anatomist trained in cranial volume there exsists a well-known fact about Humans. As any educated adult is well aware humans are part of the classification known as mammals. When we are young we learn some of the simple qualities that make a mammal a mammal. For instance we learn as a child that mammals have hair. We learn that mammals are warm-blooded and that they feed as infants from their mother’s milk. What we do not learn typically as children is that there are two primary classifications of mammals. Why I use the word primary will become clear soon enough. At birth a mammal is considered either precoital or atriotocial. precocial mammals are born ready to run within minutes. Their senses are fully developed, eyes are open and the body is ready to make them a functioning part of the herd (typically). Cows, antelopes, and other herbivorous herd animals are precocial. Altricial mammals are born with their eyes closed. They cannot walk. They cannot see. Canines and felines are classic examples of an accoital mammal. Within a few weeks of birth these less developed mammals are ready to walk about eyes wide open and senses beginning to grow. Human babies fall into neither of these categories or perhaps more correctly both. A human child cannot walk at birth but its senses are developed and ready for intake. Although an entire book could be dedicated to the ramifications and reasons for this oddity of Homo Sapiens, we will leave the discussion here and suffice it to say it seems to be an evolutionary adaptation associated with the large cranial to birth canal ratio associated with humans. Evolution has provided a method to allow for the development of the human brain. The evolutionary state does not stop with the end of the gestation period and the fact that humans are both precocial and altricial at the same time. This attribute gives rise to yet another unique feature of humans in that our cranial growth during our first year in life far exceeds that of any other animal. By one year of age a humans head will be 90 percent or better of its adult size. Although unknown by Dubois with the exactness extracted recently by Walker et al. a critical size of 850cc dictates the mere value of normal gradation for a human skull. The skullcap found by Dubois fell within the range of 850 to 1000cc measurement associated with the size of a Homo Erectus skull.

Unlike his missing link theory, his normalized brain to body mass volume theory fit well into the expanding Western culture. Statistically speaking, the races - as defined by the Blumenbach breakdown – fall into the following order: Mongoloid, Caucasoid, and finally Negroid. It is critical to note here the sense of Western expansion. The critical area of expansion at the time was Africa and the difference between Asian and Western Cranial volume was so close it was - and for those cranialoligist is still - contentionous. What is clear is that Negroid cranial volumes are on average significantly lesser in volume to both Mongoloid and Caucasoid volumes. Subsequently, the migration and cultural purging was limited in the Far East but significant in on the African Continent. If only the fossil record could be shown to match the clear “superiority” of the Western culture then Western culture expansion would be justified throughout the world. Other cultures and racial groups could be viewed as an order of animal perhaps less than human and certainly less than that of modern Homo Sapiens of Northern Europe and Eastern Asia.

The tale only gets more complex with the completion of Dubois’ work. The Western world and its understanding of humans arrival on the planet was now on notice. Skeletal remains had been located in Europe and more were being revealed with passing time. The bones of the Neandertal Valley were not a single event find that could be explained away as an aberration of over zealous Darwinist. Add to that Dubois was purporting yet another variation of humanity that could be found in Java and closer resembled half ape and half man than the remains of the Neandertal man. This time the cranial capacity was a clear value between ape and man and it was beginning to appear that the Candelabra theory of evolution had substantial factual backing in the bone record. Dubois and his Pithecanthropus erectus was not an isolated case of confusion addressing the Western cultural expansion. At the time it appeared there was a never-ending flow of new information. Even amateurs were making ground-breaking discoveries. Or at least it seemed. Thus enters screen left perhaps the greatest hoax in recorded modern science – The Piltdown Man. On December 18th 1912 newspapers throughout the Western World reported what the Westerners had long desired to hear. The solution to race, evolution, and the need to justify Western Superiority had been accomplished. The problem was the game was not over and it appears the scientific referees were about to be challenged on their call.

The Piltdown man was clearly a cross of some ape similar to an Orangutan and today’s present Homo Sapiens. This was the evidence the world needed to bring all things back into kilter. Yes, today’s humans had evolved from apes. In the case of the Piltdown man a skull fragment from what appeared to be a modern human and the jaw of what appeared to be an orangutan was discovered by an amateur archaeologist named Charles Dawson. The Candelabra theory was correct and the division of the races was clear and steadfast. Negroids had evolved from African Apes and Caucasians from this new beast that was found in the new cradle of civilization – Sussex England. The decision was complete. Blacks were inferior animals and the fossil record proved it. The sordid part of the tale is that the Piltdown Man was an elaborate hoax. For some 40 years it was assumed to be fact. In 1953, the news broke the skull was not a million years old but rather a 500 year old skull fragment and a well stained jaw of an orangutan. Although there is no fast evidence as to who perpetrated the anthropological forgery, it is highly speculated that either Dawson the discoverer, Hinton a volunteer of the Natural Museum where the bones were kept or interestingly enough Conan Doyle, the author of the famed Sherlock Holmes books were involved. Interestingly enough Doyle was a member of the same archaeology society as the other two men. Doyle was a strong spiritualist that believed it was possible to speak to the dead. Doyle received much criticism for this belief. Combining this knowledge of criticism with some of his published statements gives credence to the idea that Doyle wanted to show how easy it was to deceive the infantile science of Anthropology.

As we discussed in our earlier section on discreet measurements of Science, there is a never-ending research process to obtain all the information regarding a topic. So has been the case in anthropology, providing ever better understanding to our origins. In South Africa another English man named Raymond Dart continued looking even after the Piltdown discovery. Dart discovered yet another missing link. Although his discovery techniques were not as well honed as today’s modern anthropologist, Dart clearly had skeletal remains in sufficient volume and character to indicate yet another step in the fossil record review of the ascension of mankind from some tree or savannah dwelling prosimian. Again the record showed that the prosimian crossover to humanity heralded a continent other than Europe. Certainly if Europeans were to be considered the more powerful race, then humanity must have begun in Europe maybe Asia but not Africa. By the 1950’s the hope for a European genesis of the human race began to fade. Asia had taken the lead but Africa was still considered little more than tidal backwater.

By the 1940s Sinanthropus Pekinensis had been discovered in the Zhoukoudian cave near Beijing, researched for 20 years by the German/American anthropologist Werner and then lost during the Japanese invasion. Despite the loss of these fossils the concept was beginning to emerge. Earlier forms of upright hominids had walked the earth long before the time frame of the genesis offered by Arch Bishop Ussher. By 1974 with the discovery of “Lucy” a 3.4 million year old hominid found in North Eastern Africa and named for the song “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” playing on the camp tape player, the last bastions of defense were torn down from Ussher’s idea of 3500 years since the genesis. Not only was Ussher slightly wrong, but, his time frame was off by 3 orders of magnitude.

The period, from Darwin’s publication of the Origins of the Species in the mid 1850’s, until the mid 1970’s saw a concerted effort by Western Society to find a missing link that placed Europe or even eastern Asia as the Garden of Eden. So desperate was the research that the scientific community was more willing to accept a find stumbled upon in a gravel pit by an amateur rather then years of searching and research by a noted anatomist. The Piltdown man experience provides us significant evidence that political processes and popular opinion often drive us to failed scientific understanding. Meanwhile those that are willing to call the “emperor naked” are placed on notice of their fringe level of acceptance to society. With years of following research it seems Dubois was right all along. His Pithecanthropus Erectus finally became part of a greater classification known as Homo erectus. We will explore the significance of this in the next two chapters. For now let us reflect on what we know. Hominids appear to have evolved over more than the last 3.4 million years and the path they have taken is a labyrinth of anthropological complexity that when reviewed in detail demonstrates a tremendous gradation of humanity.