Sangiran 2

Sangiran II (also: Pithecanthropus II) is the name given to a particularly well-preserved fossil of Homo erectus. It was named after the archaeological site of Sangiran on the Indonesian island of Java. This fossil is an almost complete skull roof with a striking, continuous transverse ridge of the frontal bone above the root of the nose ( " Überaugenwulst "). The find consisted of a total of 33 fragments, which were handed over on 12 and 13 August 1937, Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenig forest. Meanwhile, fossil collectors Atmowidjojo had the fragments discovered in the known as fossils deposit deposits of a river, about a kilometer northeast of the village Bapeng. The brain volume of the skull was more than 800 cm ³.

The skull roof was like the 1891 also discovered in Java by Eugene Dubois Fossil Trinil II and came of Koenigswald According assessment " of the same layers " so that Koenigswald then assigned his find also the type Pithecanthropus erectus. Trinil II was the type specimen of this type first described by Dubois; be only since the 1980s, at the suggestion of U.S. paleontologists Albert Santa Luca all homo- finds from Java called Homo erectus.

Due to the finding situation in the deposits of a former watercourse precise absolute dating of fossils discovered in Sangiran has not succeeded to date. It can not be excluded that the alluvial bones had been deposited elsewhere a long time, there have been exposed by soil erosion again and again arrived at the site to rest. Using two layers of volcanic sediments, between which lay these fossils, but their age could be determined (1.02 million years) and their maximum age (1.5 million years ago); from the Research Institute Senckenberg the age of Sangiran II is reported at 1.5 million years.

The Fund is considered the most important piece of Koenigswald collection and is now preserved in the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt am Main.