Meganthropus

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Meganthropus
Temporal occurrence
Old Pleistocene to Middle Pleistocene
Locations
Systematics
Monkey (anthropoidea)
Old World Monkey (Catarrhini)
Human (Hominoidea)
Apes (Hominidae)
Ponginae
Meganthropus
Scientific name
Meganthropus
von Koenigswald , 1950
species
  • Meganthropus palaeojavanicus

Meganthropus is an extinct genus of primates from the family of great apes (hominids), whose fossils on Java ( Indonesia were discovered). The finds weredatedto the early Pleistocene and Middle Pleistocene . The only species of the genusso far, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus , wasformally describedin 1950 by Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald .

Naming

Meganthropus is an artificial word . The name of the genus is derived from ancient Greek ἄνθρωπος anthropos , German ' human ' and μέγας megas ('large'). The epithet of the only scientifically described species so far, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus , alludes to the place of discovery (Java) and to the old age of the finds (παλαιός palaios, German: palaeo = 'old'). Meganthropus palaeojavanicus therefore means "old great man from Java".

As early as the early 1940s, the term “meganthropus” had been used informally for unusually large finds from Asia, and in more recent times new finds were occasionally associated with meganthropus . The fragment of an upper jaw from Laetoli , which Hans Weinert called Meganthropus africanus in 1950 , is now ascribed to Australopithecus afarensis .

In 1954 it was proposed - without success - to assign Meganthropus palaeojavanicus to the genus Paranthropus described in Africa and to rename the species to Paranthropus palaeojavanicus .

Initial description

The holotype of the genus and also of the type Meganthropus palaeojavanicus is the partially preserved lower jaw Sangiran 6a , which was recovered in 1941 by Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald at the Sangiran site . Due to the size of the three remaining teeth and the jawbone, von Koenigswald did not attribute his find to the Java people (today: Homo erectus ), but decided to name a separate genus and species. Among experts, whether Meganthropus was initially controversial (as the name suggests) to be classified in the vicinity of the immediate ancestors of humans ( Homo sapiens ) or - like Gigantopithecus - in the family of the orangutans . After numerous other fossil finds in Asia and Africa, which were called Homo erectus despite a considerable morphological diversity , it was assumed that the lower jaw Sangiran 6a was still within the range of variation of Homo erectus . Therefore, since the mid-1950s - as a result of an assumed sexual dimorphism - it was considered to belong to Homo erectus .

That only changed in 2009 after Clément Zanolli at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle in Paris had analyzed various fossils from Sangiran again and now also inside them with the help of x-ray micro-computed tomographic examinations. He had noticed that the characteristics of the fairly large lower jaw fragment Arjuna 9 materially from Homo erectus differed, similar to the fossil record but 5 Sangiran (the holotype of Pithecanthropus dubius ) and Sangiran 6a exhibited and therefore may own fossil apes were attributable -Art.

Re-establishment of the genus

In collaboration with others, Ottmar Kullmer and Friedemann Schrenk from the Senckenberg Research Institute then other fossils "screened", including the two in were Frankfurt custody finds from the collection GHR Koenigswald, Sangiran 5 and Sangiran 6a and more individual than a dozen fossil Molars of uncertain species. In addition, the wear and tear of the tooth enamel were taken into account - with the result that the teeth of Sangiran 5 and Sangiran 6a belong neither to Homo erectus nor to the orangutans: “The new data now show that the teeth are in the distribution the enamel thickness, the surface and position of the cusps of the dentin inside the tooth crowns both from the teeth of Homo erectus and from those of the orangutans. ”In April 2019, the status of Meganthropus was therefore revised and the genus again as independently established. The holotype is therefore again the lower jaw fragment Sangiran 6a , the fossil Sangiran 5 (with the consequence that Pithecanthropus dubius is only a synonym for Meganthropus palaeojavanicus ) as well as the finds Trinil 11620, Trinil 11621, FS-77 and were added as paratypes to this fragment SMF-8864. At the same time, a close relationship between Meganthropus and Lufengpithecus was established.

According to the study published in 2019 , a third, non- hominine development of the great apes lived in Southeast Asia right into the Pleistocene, in addition to Gigantopithecus and the direct ancestors of the orangutans .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald : Fossil hominids of the Lower Pleistocene of Java: Trinil. In: Proceedings of the 18th International Geological Congress. International Geological Conference, 1950, pp. 59-61
  2. ↑ Donald E. Tyler: "Meganthropus" cranial fossils from Java. In: Human Evolution. Volume 16, No. 2, 2001, pp. 81-101, doi: 10.1007 / BF02438642 , full text
  3. ↑ Hans Weinert : About the new early and early human finds from Africa, Java, China and France. In: Journal of Morphology and Anthropology. Volume 42, No. 1, 1950, pp. 113-148.
  4. ↑ Keyword: Meganthropus africanus Weinert, 1950. In: Bernard Wood (Ed.): Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. Wiley-Blackwell, 2011, ISBN 978-1-4051-5510-6 .
  5. ^ John T. Robinson: The genera and species of the Australopithecinae. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 12, No. 2, 1954, pp. 181-200 (here: 196), doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330120216
  6. ↑ Clément Zanolli et al .: Lower Pleistocene hominid paleobiodiversity in Southeast Asia: Evidence for a Javanese pongine taxon. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 153, S58, 2014, p. 281, full text
  7. ↑ Reassessing the Early to Middle Pleistocene hominid diversity in Java. On: nature.com from April 8, 2019
  8. ↑ Mysterious ape from Java exposed. On: idw-online from April 8, 2019
  9. ↑ Clément Zanolli, Ottmar Kullmer et al .: Evidence for increased hominid diversity in the Early to Middle Pleistocene of Indonesia. In: Nature Ecology & Evolution. Volume 3, 2019, pp. 755-764, doi: 10.1038 / s41559-019-0860-z