TRIVIA: JAVA MAN
Indonesian archaeological findings have contributed more than their share of controversy in the past. In 1891, a Dutch military physician discovered a fossilized primate jawbone in Central Java with human characteristics. The jawbone was at first discounted as belonging to an extinct species of apes. But in the following year, two more humanoid fossils were uncovered and thought to be the world's first evidence of Darwin 's “missing link”. But Darwin 's evolutionary theories were still in dispute at the time and, the discovery, dubbed Java Man, was only vindicated with the discovery of similar fossils outside Beijing in 1921.
Java Man and Peking Man are now recognized as members of the species Homo erectus, a direct ancestor of people who inhabited the Old World about 1.7 million to 250,000 years ago. The body skeleton of Homo erectus was essentially modern, but the skull was thick, long and low, possessing a massive face with strongly protruding brow ridges. Many fossils of this type have been discovered in Central Java , some more than a million years old. Replicas are on display at the Museum Geologi in Bandun, and at the Museum Trinil at Sangiran, near Solo.
Research has shown that Homo erectus probably could not speak, but uttered sounds to communicate. They were omnivores and food gatherers who lived in caves as well as open campsites. They also produced an extensive stone tool kit that included flaked choppers, axes and adzes.
The classification of more recent humanoid fossils is still very much in doubt, particularly for the transitional species between Homo erectus and modern humans. Central to the problem is the question of whether modern people evolved in a single place (thought by some to be sub-Saharan Africa ) and then spread to other areas, or whether parallel evolutions occurred in various places and at different rates. Fossil records can be interpreted either way.
Beginning about 20,000 years ago, there is evidence of human burials and partial cremations. Several cave paintings (mainly hand stencils, but also human and animal figures) found in south-western Sulawesi and New Guinea may be 10,000 or more years old.
The Neolithic centuries—which appear to have begun soon after the end of the last Ice Age, around 10,000 BC—are characterized here, as elsewhere, by the advent of village settlements, domesticated animals, polished stone tools, pottery and food cultivation.
In northern Thailand , one recently discovered Neolithic site has been reliably placed in the 7 th millennium BC. For Indonesia , however, there is no evidence prior to the 3 rd millennium BC, and most sites are of a more recent date. In Southwest Sulawesi and the East Timor plain for instance, pottery pots and open bowls dating from about 3,000 BC have been found, together with shell bracelets, discs, beads, adzes and the bones of pig and dog species that may have been domesticated.
The first agriculturalists in Indonesia probably grew taro (a root vegetable) before the introduction of rice. In fact, rice came to much of Indonesia only in recent centuries, and taro is still a staple crop on many eastern islands, together with bananas, yam, breadfruit, coconuts and sugar cane. Bark clothing was produced with stone-pounding tools and pottery was shaped with the aid of a wooden paddle and a stone anvil tapper.
Neolithic Indonesians were undoubtedly experienced seafarers, like their Polynesian cousins who were spreading across the Pacific at this time. Today, the outrigger is commonly found throughout Indonesia and Oceania.
.gif) |