Trinil

At first, he explored caves around Sumatra without much success, and so he shifted his attention to the island of Java in Indonesia.

His journey took him to the banks of the Solo River, near the village of Trinil.

The site was unexceptional.

The Solo River had carved a steep bank about 30 feet high into the landscape, and Dubois, with his team of convict laborers and two army corporals, took advantage of this natural exposure by cutting trenches into the riverbank.

By 1891, they had found a fossilized human-like molar, and two months later they discovered the now famous skull cap called Trinil 2.

If you think of a modern human skull, we have a large forehead, and the shape of the cranium where the brain is located is very round.

The Trinil 2 skull cap, though, was shaped more like a rugby ball.

It had a long and low cranium with a flat forehead and a distinctive ridge on top of the back of the head that ran from front to back, called a sagittal keel.

he would start his search among the rivers and caves of the island of Sumatra before moving on to the neighbouring island of Java.

Java Man It was while near Trinil in East Java during the year 1891 that Dubois and his team discovered a particularly interesting skullcap.

One of the notable aspects of the skullcap was the heavy brow ridge and a sagittal keel.

Now if this sounds familiar it's because we mentioned a sagittal crest before when discussing the robust Australopithecines called the Paranthropines in the two previous podcast episodes.