Coming soon.

Forty Homo erectus individuals were found within a cave, known as Locality 1, at Zhoukoudian (nee Dragon Bone Hill), about 42 km southwest of Beijing, China. Excavations began at Locality 1 in the early 1920s, with the first skullcap found in 1929. At the start of the Japanese invasion of China prior to World War II, paleoanthropologists sent the fossils to the United States for safekeeping. Unfortunately, all the original fossils, except for 2 teeth, disappeared during shipment in December of 1941. Extraordinary casts of the skullcaps, mandible, teeth, and facial/cranial fragments were made prior to the fossils disappearance. These casts are still used today, along with a 1996 reconstruction, to study the expansive H. erectus collection from Locality 1.

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Before Trinil 2 was discovered, most scientists believed hominins originated in Europe. But in 1891, the partial cranium of Trinil 2 was discovered near the Solo River (near Ngawi, java, Indonesia), and predated any known European fossil at about 1 Ma to 700 Ka. Dubbed "Java Man", Trinil 2 was originally assigned the taxonomic name of Pithecanthropus erectus by Eugene Dubois who was searching for "the missing link" between apes and humans. The specimen was later reassigned to Homo erectus, and designated as the holotype for this species¹.