Question

The original name for Asian Homo erectus was Group of answer choices Homo rudolfensis. Australopithecus. Paranthropus. Pithecanthropus.

Answer 1

Answer: Pithecanthropus erectus.

Explanation:

Between 1891 and 1892 Eugène Dubois believed he had found the "missing link", hypothesized by Ernst Haeckel, when he discovered some loose teeth, a skull cap and a femur - very similar to that of modern man - in the excavations he was carrying out in Trinil, located on the island of Java, Indonesia. Homo erectus erectus was the first specimen of Homo erectus to be discovered.  Dubois first named it Anthropopithecus erectus and then renamed it Pithecanthropus erectus. The name Homo erectus means in Latin "erect man", wich means, "standing man", whereas Pithecantropus erectus means "standing ape-man".

So, Dubois published these findings as Pithecanthropus erectus in 1894, more popularly known as "Java Man" or "Trinil Man". In the 1930s the German palaeontologist Ralpf von Koenigswald obtained new fossils, both from Trinil and from new locations such as Sangiran and in 1938 von Koenigswald identified a magnificent Sangiran skull as "Pithecanthropus". It was not until 1940 that Mayr attributed all these remains to the genus Homo (Homo erectus erectus).