Solo Man

Solo Man
Temporal range: Pleistocene
↓
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
Genus: Homo
Species: H. erectus
Subspecies: H. e. soloensis
Trinomial name
Homo erectus soloensis
Oppenoorth, 1932

Solo Man (Homo erectus soloensis) was formerly classified as Homo sapiens soloensis and is now regarded as a subspecies of the extinct hominin, Homo erectus. Discovered between 1931 and 1933 by Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald,[1] the only known specimens of this anomalous hominid were retrieved from sites along the Solo River, on the Indonesian island of Java. The remains are also commonly referred to as Ngandong (now at Kradenan district, Blora Regency), after the village near where they were first recovered.

Though its morphology was, for the most part, typical of Homo erectus, its culture was unusually advanced.[2] This poses many problems to current theories concerning the limitations of Homo erectus behavior in terms of innovation and language.[3] Its cranial capacity ranged between 1013–1251 cm³, placing it amongst the larger-brained members of the Homo genus.[4]

Due to the tools found with the extinct hominid and many of its more gracile anatomical features, it was first classified as a subspecies (once called Javanthropus) of Homo sapiens and thought to be the ancestor of modern aboriginal Australians. However, more rigorous studies have concluded that this is not the case.[5] Analysis of 18 crania from Sangiran, Trinil, Sambungmacan, and Ngandong show chronological development from the Bapang-AG to Ngandong periods.[6] H. e. soloensis was re-dated in 2011 to between 550,000 and 143,000 years old.[7]

Notes

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. ↑ Ngandong (Emuseum@Minnesota State University, Mankato)
  3. ↑ Peter Brown: Recent human evolution in East Asia and Australasia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Biological Sciences, Vol. 337, 235-242, 1992
  4. ↑ http://www.columbia.edu/~rlh2/PartII.pdf
  5. ↑ Peter Brown: Recent human evolution in East Asia and Australasia. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Biological Sciences, Vol. 337, 235-242, 1992
  6. ↑ 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. ISSN 0047-2484. PMID 18635247. doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2008.05.002.
  7. ↑ Finding showing human ancestor older than previously thought offers new insights into evolution, 5 July 2011.
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