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Will the Real Homo erectus Please Stand Up?
Upon completion this page will look at the femurs, tibias and fibulas of modern humans and compare them to the complex apes. We will see God's great design in these structures and show that a similar design is good evidence for a common Designer, not a common ancestor.
We have a large sample of femurs attributed to the species Homo erectus.
The first femur attributed to Homo erectus was Trinil 1 from Trinil, Java. This specimen was found in 1891 by Eugene Dubois 15 metres upstream from the calotte (top of the skull).
(Michael Day "Guide to Fossil man: A Handbook of Human Palaeontology" pg 222, 1968. The World Publishing company, Cleveland and New York.)
Trinil femur 1 is now classified as Trinil 3 ("The evolution of Homo erectus", G. Philip Rightmire pg 16)
Dr. Sperber (19__) has said that the femur belongs to an adult female. (Sperber pg 338)
In 1968 Day said that the contemporanity (sp) of the femur and calotte were confirmed by their fluorine content.
(Michael Day "Guide to Fossil man: A Handbook of Human Palaeontology", 1968. The World Publishing company, Cleveland and New York.)pg 222
But in the 1993 edition of his book he states that new doubt has been cast on the provenance of the Trinil 1 femur. (Day 1984)
The Trinil 1 femur has been assigned to Homo erectus at a time when no other H. erectus femurs had been found. Because it was not directly associated with the skull their association should have remained tenative.
Some say that this is further evidence that Homo erectus is just a variety of Homo sapiens. It is not.
Homo erectus is a creature distinct from humans. Erectus is a bipedal primate that was created on Day 6 to live with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.
But the association of the Trinil femur and the Trinil skullcap has always been disputed, the fact remains they can (and I believe do) belong to two different species. One human, the other non-human (Homo erectus).
"The Trinil 1 femur differs in its composition from the calotte and the other femor"
(this is in Days 1993 edition of "Guide to fossil man" he lists: (Day, 1984; Day 1986) as his source for the above comment. I will try to obtain these for more info)
This may indicate they are indeed from 2 different individuals. But are they 2 individuals from the same species - or 2 individuals of different species?
If the Java man femur is that of a human.
This can mean one of three things:
1) Homo erectus and Homo sapiens are the same (they are variations of the same species)
or
2) Homo erectus had a femur similar to Homo sapiens (they had similar legs, but were different creatures. One human, one ape)
or
3) The Trinil femur belongs to a human, and not to the Java man skull cap.
It is my belief that the Trinil femur is human, and does not belong to Homo erectus, though Homo erectus did have a similar femur.
The Trinil skull cap, and the Trinil femur are actually from two individuals, one human (Homo sapien) and one Homo erectus. This shows that the two species lived at the same time. (see my section on coexisting species and its evidence against ancestral relationships) Click here to go to: https://www.angelfire.com/mi/dinosaurs/erectus_habilis.html (opens new browser window)
Dr. Marvin Lubenow is a well educated, well meaning Creationist, but he misses the boat on Homo erectus. Lubenow believes erectus is a varient of Homo sapiens, and overlooks* evidence showing they are 2 different creatures.
* I would have said "is unaware of..." but my conversations with him have given him more than ample evidence that Homo erectus is not a varient of Homo sapiens.
One place I believe he misses this is in his treatment of the Trinil (Java man) femur. Lubenow points out that: "Whereas the skulls of Peking Man and Java Man were quite similar, the Peking Man femora differed from the Java Man femur in the very places where the Java Man femur was similar to modem humans."("Bones of Contention" pg 98)
| Peking man | Java Man | Human |
| Skull = Homo erectus | Skull = Homo erectus | Skull = Human |
| Femur = Homo erectus | Femur = Human | Femur = Human |
Here Lubenow points out that the femurs of Java man (Homo erectus) and humans are different creatures. But he ignores the significance.
These differences fall outside the range of variation.
I asked Dr. Ian Tattersall (New York) this on 7/24/01 and he said he has "no opinion"
Dr. Mann told me there were "very few erectus features" to the Trinil (Java man) femur (phone 5/01)
On 7/25/01 I asked Dr. Mann again about this, and he said:
"When Dubois found the femur, he was convinced that it was more or less directly associated with the skull, also found in Trinil, central Java. later on, when other femoral fragments were found in Africa, there were questions about the very modern human-like
qualities that the bone possesses. Some have questioned whether or nor it is truly as ancient as the skull vault, but might be a modern femur that was also incorporated into the ancient deposits."
(personal letter)
A legitimate question might be, if the femur is not as old as it is claimed, and might be from a more recent deposit, then isn't it also possible that the skull isn't as old as is claimed?
I asked Dr. Stringer if the femur was human and he said:
"The Trinil femur is certainly "human" [belonging to the genus Homo], although it does have a pathological outgrowth. Day & Molleson proposed that this femur might be a later, more modern, femur incorporated into the Trinil river deposits, while other femora found by Dubois did show more archaic features."
(7/25/01) Dr. Stringer suggested the book "The Man Who Found the Missing Link : Eugene Dubois and His Lifelong Quest to Prove Darwin Right" by Pat Shipman.
(although the men quoted above do not agree with my position on creation and evolution, I would like to thank them for their help)
Rightmire in his book: "The Evolution of Homo erectus" states that:
"All the femora have been restudied by Day & Molleson (1973), who confirm that neither measurements nor details of microscopic anatomy distinguish these bones [the femurs from Trinil] from those of modern humans. In several respects, the Trinil fossils do differ from femora found with the skulls of Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian in China [Peking man]. How this information should be interpreted is not clear, as long as the question of association of the postcranial bones with the Trinil cranium is unresolved. Results of bone chemistry microanalysis reported by Day (1984) do not yet provide a basis for regarding Trinil 3 [Java femur] as different in age from Trinil 2 [Java man skull cap]. Nevertheless, attribution of the femora to Homo erectus remains problematical, and the fossils are not considered further in this monograph"
Pg 16, Rightmire, "Evolution of Homo erectus". M. Day and Molleson 1973 reference refers to: "The Trinil femora. In Human evoluton ed. M. H. Day, pp. 127-54. London, Taylor and Francis
Michael Day says: "The features of this femur, in particular the 'weight-carrying-angle' between the shaft and the condyles, suggest strongly that Java man was capable of standing and walking erectly. A study of the Trinil femora (Day and Molleson, 1973) concludes that the gross, radiological and microscopical anatomoy of these bones does not distinguish them from modern human femora."
(Day 1993, Guide to fossil man, pg 341)
Day gives the angle of the Trinil femur neck as 122 degrees (Day 1993, pg 341)
What is the angle of 15k?
If the Java man femur (Trinil 3) was actually a human (Homo sapiens) femur, then why was it called an erectus leg bone?
According to Weidenreich, Dubois was possesed with the idea that if remains were found in the same geological formation then they must belong to the same kind of creature, and if they were found in the same general location they must be from the same individual.
(pg 95, "Giant Early man from Java and South China" by Franz Weidenreich, Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, 1945)
Dubois did not allow himself to think of the possibility that 2 creatures Homo sapien (human) and Homo erectus (ape) could live at the same time.
Dubois regarded the Trinil skull cap, femur and 3 teeth as all belonging to the same individual. Even though these remains were scattered over 45 square feet.
(pg 95, "Giant Early man from Java and South China" by Franz Weidenreich, Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, 1945)
Weidenreich says that "The real nature of the Trinil femur, however, still remained unsettled. In size and form it is exactly like any femur of modern man." (pg 95, "Giant Early man from Java and South China" by Franz Weidenreich, Anthropological papers of the American Museum of Natural History, New York, 1945)
For years I have wondered whether the Trinil (Java man) femur was that of erectus, or of a human (Homo sapien). Some sources hinted that it may be that of a modern human, but others did not want to commit to a designation. The issue was settled for me in 2002 when I was able to study the femur first hand.
The femur from Java is that of a human (Homo sapien), while the "Java man" calotte (Pithecanthropus 1) is that of an ape, specifically Homo erectus.
The Homo erectus femur from Java (Trinil) is human in every respect. This femur has been mistakenly associated with a Homo erectus skull cap.
There is still great debate today as to whether the leg bone belongs to the same individual as the skull.
"A pathological femur subsequently found upstream from the cranium may or may not be from the same individual and has a remarkably modern-looking form."
quote from Dr. Donald Johanson("From Lucy to Language")
Why does Johanson say this?
This bone has been studied and many have found it to be indistinguishable from that of a human leg bone. (2)
Since the Trinil femur is from a human, then that means humans lived at the same time as Java man (and other Homo erectus individuals). This means that Humans could not have evolved from Java man (or Homo erectus) because Humans were already around at the same time. (I address the question of 2 species coexisting, and still be ancestral elsewhere)
But when the femur was found Evolutionists claimed that it did belong to Java man.
The femur is that of a modern human. There is a pathological outgrowth on the upper third of the specimen. This pathologic femur of Homo sapiens is unlike that of Homo erectus femurs whether they are compared to healthy Homo erectus individuals (15k), or those suffering from disease (KNM-ER 1808).
| The following comes from "Buried Alive" by Dr. Jack Cuozzo: |
"The Trinil I femur from Java has a bone tumor in its upper third. This has been associated with a Homo erectus calotte (top of the skull). Day wrote that "doubts have been cast on the provenance of the Trinil I femur following new analytical studies on the Javan Trinil remains." Day also wrote that the gross and microscopic anatomy and radiologic findings do not distinguish any of the femora (femurs) from modem man. Concerning the tumorous femur, he remarked, "The complete femur is remarkable in its general resemblance to modern man." ("Buried Alive" The startling truth about Neanderthal man, by Dr. Jack Cuozzo. This information is on pg 259. Dr Cuozzo gives Day's "Guide to fossil man" as a reference. ) |
| The following info comes from the book "Bones of Contention" by Marvin Lubenow. I will be adding comments to it soon. |
| 98 "Since the association of the Peking Man skulls and femora was undisputed, Weidenreich concluded that the Java Man femur was not a true Homo erectus femur but was instead a modem one. (8)" |
I don't want to spend too much time on the Java man femur, as there are many equally well preserved, non-pathologic femurs that everyone accepts as belonging to Homo erectus
| Specimen | Status | neck angle |
|---|---|---|
| Trinil (Java) | Human | - | OH 28 | Homo erectus | - | KNM-ER 1808 | Homo erectus | - | Peking man | Homo erectus | - | KNM-WT 15000 | Homo erectus | - |
The femur of OH 28 lacks the femoral head and also the distal end. There is also an associated ilium (see chapter _ ).
Homo sapiens have an obtuse neck angle. The angle on Homo erectus and H. habilis are acute, almost a right angle.
obtuse: used to describe an angle greater than 90º and less than 180º
acute: used to describe an angle that is less than 90 degrees
Day gives the following list of features of an erectus femur: lack of much anteroposterior bowing of the shaft, narrowest part of the shaft placed distally, convexity of the medial border of the shaft, pronounced platymeria subtrochantericcally, thicness of the shaft cortex (medullary stenosis) (pg 145 Nariokotome)
The skeleton of KNM-ER 1808 has a relatively complete right femur, lacking the head.
We learned more about the femurs of Homo erectus when the remains of Peking man were found. (will elaborate)
|
The juvenile Homo erectus skeleton KNM-WT 15000 had both femurs that were unquestionably from the same individual as the cranium.
When this was examined it was shown to be quite different from those in humans. We can also examine this femur, and determine whether or not the Java man (Trinil) femur is erectus or Homo sapien. When you compare the Trinil femur to the Turkana femur, they show marked differences. The Trinil femur is (…problem with text - under construction…) while the Turkana femur is (…..) Lubenow even mentions it in his book, yet overlooks its significance. How can he then say that one is human and one is Homo erectus, if Homo erectus and Homo sapiens were the same creature? When you compare the Trinil femur to that of OH 28, KNM-ER 1808, or KNM-WT 15000 you will see that the first (Trinil, Java) is human, the others are Homo erectus. |
 Here is a picture of the Turkana boy (Homo erectus) femurs. |
Both femurs of 15k were recovered. The left (G) and the right (H). The left is complete, the right is missing only the epiphyses for the head and greater trochanter (Nariokotome, pg 144.)
The leg bones of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens (humans) are similar in many ways. But the leg bones of Homo erectus also show marked differences that enable you to distinguish between the two.
The length of the femoral neck in WT-15000 is phenominal.
Donald Johanson comments on some of the differences between Homo erectus and modern human skeletons in his book "From Lucy to Language".
In reference to the leg bones Johanson says that KNM-WT 15000 had "...an elongated neck on the femur, a primitive feature also found in australopithecines." ("From Lucy to Language" pg 182)
Ian Tattersall echos this in his book "The fossil Trail": "The femoral heads are large, like ours, but the necks attaching them to the shafts are long, like an australopithecine's." ("The fossil trail" pg 188)
So you have a long femoral neck in Australopithecus, a short neck in H. habilis, a long neck in H. erectus and then short again in H. sapiens.
Does anyone else see a problem with this?
Ian Tattersall adds: "Another difference from us is that his thigh bones had rather long necks, possibly to compensate for what in a female would have been a small birth canal."
(pg 61, "The Last Neanderthal" Revised Edition 1999)
"It is of interest that the femur of KNM-WT 15000 from Nariokotome has an exceptionally long neck, suggesting enhancement of the abductor mechanism compared to Homo sapiens (Brown, Leakey, Walker, Nature 316, "Early Homo erectus skeleton from West Lake Turkana, Kenya, pg 788-92 1985)."
Rightmire (pg 177 "THE ANATOMY OF HOMO ERECTUS")
Linea aspera
It is clear from the position of the linea aspera on 15k that erectus walked upright, but the orientation in erectus is different from that in H. sapiens due to the angle of the femoral neck and head.
femoral: relating to, in, or involving the thigh or femur.
The linea aspera of Homo sapiens (human) is different from that of Homo erectus (ape) even though both walked upright. The linea aspera is oriented more towards the lateral side in H. erectus, and on the medial side in humans (H. sapiens).
| The info here comes from the book: "Forbidden archaeology" |
Forbid. Arch. pg 703 |
Day and Molleson (1973, p. 128) have said that most of the femurs ascribed to H. erectus (such as OH 28 and Sinanthropus/Peking man) were unlike those of modern humans. ("Forbidden archaeology" "11.7 Will the Real Homo Habilis Please Stand Up? 703)
Day and Molleson have concluded that the Trinil femurs did not belong to Homo erectus but to anatomically modern humans (Section 7.1.8).
The H. sapien nature of the Trinil femur would mean that Homo sapiens occupied the Trinil site at the same time as H. erectus at a time alleged to be 800,000 years ago.
"as described by Weidenreich ("The extremity bones of Sinanthropus pekinensis" Palaeontologia Sinica, New Series D, 5:1-150, i941), the femora from Zhoukoudian have shafts which are straight, flattened anteroposteriorly, and narrowed distally so that the position of minimum circumference is relatively low. The medullary canal exhibits stenosis, and the cortical wall is correspondingly thickened. Several of these features also characterize the femur of OH 28 (Day, 1971) and some of the limb bones from the Koobi Fora region (Day, 1976; Kennedy, 1983). Rightmire (pg 177 "THE ANATOMY OF HOMO ERECTUS")
The tibia is the large bone in your leg below your knee.
Many of the complex apes had tibias similar to our own.
| The leg is composed of 2 bones, the tibia and the fibula. The tibia (TIB-ee-uh) is the larger weight supporting bone. The fibula (FIB-you-luh) is the smaller of the two and helps to stabalize the ankle. |  |
| Here is a picture of the Homo erectus tibia from Ngandong. |  | (more info to be added soon) |  |
 |
Boxgrove tibia |
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