Eugène Dubois

Eugène Dubois ( born January 28, 1858 in Eijsden, The Netherlands, † December 16, 1940 in Haelen, Netherlands) was a Dutch anthropologist, geologist and a military doctor. He became famous by the discovery of Java man (flat skull roof with strong Überaugenwülsten ) in 1891 from a river wall in Trinil on the Indonesian island of Java. He gave his find the scientific name Pithecanthropus erectus Pithecanthropus after the Greek word for " ape-man ". First, Dubois believed to have found the skull roof of a chimpanzee, but later discovered in the same layer typically human femur and a molar tooth.

Today, the fossils of Java man be put together with those of the Peking Man and other finds on Homo erectus.

Dubois is considered the first researcher who was traveling specifically looking for ancestors of man ( since 1885). He recognized one of the first that brain size and body weight in an allometric relation exist.

1897 Honorary Doctorate of Botany and Zoology, he was awarded by the University of Amsterdam, two years later he became professor of mineralogy, geology and paleontology.