PITH'ECAN'THROPUS (Neo-Lat.. from Gk. iriOnKos, piar.kos, ape, monkey + dpepwros, urrihr'upas, man). An organic genus combining the structural characters of man and the higher apes or monkeys. The type and sole species is Pithecanthropus erectus. founded by Eugene Du bois in 1894 on a ealvarium (skullcap), two upper molars, and a femur found in marine Pliocene deposits near Trinil. Java, in associa tion with bones of about a dozen extinct mam malian species. The cranium has been discussed critically by more than a score of the world's leading anatomists, of whom about one-fourth regard it as simian, about one-third as human, and the others (including Baker, Dubois, Gill, Haeekel, Manouvrier, Alarsh, Nehring, Pettit, and Verneau) as an intermediate form. All agree that if human it is more ape-iike in form and size, and that if simian or pithecoid it more nearly approaches time human type, than any other known cranium. The capacity is estimated at about, or slightly above, 901) cubic centimeters, that of the largest known anthro poid apes being 500 to 600, that of the Neander thal skull (as estimated by Huxley) 1236, and the average human cranium running from about 1301) to 1600, with an extreme range of about 1100 to 2200. The teeth combine human and
simian characters, while the femur clearly indi cates an habitual erect attitude. The genus is of special interest as representative of the 'missing link' much discussed by students of human de velopment during the third quarter of the nine teenth century; indeed, its characters were pre vised by llaeckel, who in 1886 applied the name Pithecanthropus to the still hypothetical fl)rut, and by Alc(fee, who in 1892 pointed out that the assumption of the erect attitude was neces sarily the first essential step in the development of the human genus from lower forms. Dubois's earlier publications, including Pithecunthropus erectus, eine menscheniihnliche Ueberoungsform aus Jam, are not readily accessible; a later paper, read before the Berlin Anthropological Society and printed in the inatamiseher An :cirri', vol. xii., was translated and widely re printed. in the Smithsonian Report for ISOS and elsewhere.