@article{5b0502109d1341c18c2572b88aacae81,
title = "Reconstructing the provenance of the hominin fossils from Trinil (Java, Indonesia) through an integrated analysis of the historical and recent excavations",
abstract = "In the early 1890s at Trinil, Euge?ne Dubois found a hominin skullcap (Trinil 2) and femur (Trinil 3, Femur I), situated at the same level ca. 10-15 m apart. He interpreted them as representing one species, Pithecanthropus erectus (now Homo erectus) which he inferred to be a transitional form between apes and humans. Ever since, this interpretation has been questioneddas the skullcap looked archaic and the femur surprisingly modern. From the 1950s onward, chemical and morphological analyses rekindled the debate. Concurrently, (bio)stratigraphic arguments gained importance, raising the stakes by extrapolating the consequences of potential mixing of hominin remains to the homogeneity of the complete Trinil fossil assemblage. However, conclusive evidence on the provenance and age of the hominin fossils remains absent. New Trinil fieldwork yielded unmanned aerial vehicle imagery, digital elevation models, and stratigraphic observations that have been integrated here with an analysis of the historical excavation documentation. Using a geographic information system and sightline analysis, the position of the historical excavation pits and the hominin fossils therein were reconstructed, and the historical stratigraphy was connected to that of new sections and test pits. This study documents five strata situated at low water level at the excavation site. Cutting into a lahar breccia are two similarly oriented, but asynchronous pre-terrace fluvial channels whose highly fossiliferous infills are identified as the primary targets of the historical excavations (Bone-Bearing Channel 1, 830-773 ka; Bone-Bearing Channel 2, 560 -380 ka), providing evidence for a mixed faunal assemblage and yielding most of the hominin fossils. These channels were incised by younger terrace-related fluvial channels (terminal Middle or Late Pleistocene) that directly intersect the historical excavations and the reconstructed discovery location of Femur I, thereby providing an explanation for the relatively modern morphology of this 'bone of contention'. The paleoanthropological implications are discussed in light of the current framework of human evolution in Southeast Asia. (c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).",
keywords = "Homo erectus, Stratigraphy, Dubois Collection, Pleistocene Indonesia, Geographic information system, HOMO-ERECTUS, DISTINCT ORGANIZATION, SOUTHEAST-ASIA, PITHECANTHROPUS, APPEARANCE, MORPHOLOGY, AUSTRALIA, EVOLUTION, REMAINS, AGE",
author = "E. Pop and S. Hilgen and S. Adhityatama and H. Berghuis and T. Veldkamp and H. Vonhof and I. Sutisna and G. Alink and S. Noerwidi and W. Roebroeks and J. Joordens",
note = "Funding Information: This study was carried out with permission of the Indonesian Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (RISTEK research permits: 263/SIP/FRP/ES/Dit.KI/VII/2016, 33/SIP/FRP/E5/Dit.KI/II/2018, and 12/E5/E5.4/SIP.EXT/2019 to J.J.; 2883/FRP/E5/Dit.KI/VIII/2018 and 13/E5/E5.4/SIP.EXT/2019 to E.P.) under the project {\textquoteleft}Studying Human Origin in East Java{\textquoteright}. We thank Arkenas (Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional) and in particular I Made Geria, Priyatno Hadi Sulistyarto, and Marlon Ririmasse for the pleasant research collaboration. We are grateful to the people of Trinil and the staff of the Trinil Museum for their hospitality and support. We thank our 2016, 2018, and 2019 fieldwork teams, notably our collaborators and assistants Catur Hari Gumono, Agus Hadi Widianto, Suwono, and their team, and the research team of the Sangiran Museum and the students from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. We thank Frank Huffman for providing in 2019 unpublished analyses of the 1891–1908 excavations. Thomas Schossleitner (Museum f{\"u}r Naturkunde, Berlin) is acknowledged for photographing the 1907 Selenka map and making the Selenka Collection documentation available to us, Yann Dogger for assistance with the trigonometry used in the sightline intersection analysis, and Natasja den Ouden and Karien Lahaise for assistance with the archival material of the Dubois collection. Finally, we would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief and the reviewers for their useful comments. The research was funded by the Treub Foundation (Maatschappij voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek in de Tropen) , SNMAP (Stichting Nederlands Museum voor Anthropologie en Praehistorie) , the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and the Dutch Research Council NWO (Grant number 016. Vidi.171.049 ). Funding Information: This study was carried out with permission of the Indonesian Ministry of Research, Technology and Higher Education (RISTEK research permits: 263/SIP/FRP/ES/Dit.KI/VII/2016, 33/SIP/FRP/E5/Dit.KI/II/2018, and 12/E5/E5.4/SIP.EXT/2019 to J.J.; 2883/FRP/E5/Dit.KI/VIII/2018 and 13/E5/E5.4/SIP.EXT/2019 to E.P.) under the project {\textquoteleft}Studying Human Origin in East Java{\textquoteright}. We thank Arkenas (Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional) and in particular I Made Geria, Priyatno Hadi Sulistyarto, and Marlon Ririmasse for the pleasant research collaboration. We are grateful to the people of Trinil and the staff of the Trinil Museum for their hospitality and support. We thank our 2016, 2018, and 2019 fieldwork teams, notably our collaborators and assistants Catur Hari Gumono, Agus Hadi Widianto, Suwono, and their team, and the research team of the Sangiran Museum and the students from Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. We thank Frank Huffman for providing in 2019 unpublished analyses of the 1891–1908 excavations. Thomas Schossleitner (Museum f{\"u}r Naturkunde, Berlin) is acknowledged for photographing the 1907 Selenka map and making the Selenka Collection documentation available to us, Yann Dogger for assistance with the trigonometry used in the sightline intersection analysis, and Natasja den Ouden and Karien Lahaise for assistance with the archival material of the Dubois collection. Finally, we would like to thank the Editor-in-Chief and the reviewers for their useful comments. The research was funded by the Treub Foundation (Maatschappij voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek in de Tropen), SNMAP (Stichting Nederlands Museum voor Anthropologie en Praehistorie), the Faculty of Archaeology, Leiden University and the Dutch Research Council NWO (Grant number 016. Vidi.171.049). Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2022 The Authors",
year = "2023",
month = mar,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/j.jhevol.2022.103312",
language = "English",
volume = "176",
journal = "Journal of Human Evolution",
issn = "0047-2484",
publisher = "Academic Press Inc.",
}