A search for evidence of a distant human past outside Africa

Abstract

Dating the Pleistocene and also the Ice Ages is necessary. A period of “normal” magnetism, called the Olduvai Event, occurred about 1,8 m.y.a. It can be considered the boundary between the Pliocene and the Pleistocene, lying within the Matuyama Reversed Epoch, which ended some 700 000 y.a. The boundary between the Middle and Upper or late Pleistocene we shall accept as 125 000 y.a., which is also the beginning of the Eemian interglacial. Hominid fossils were discovered in both Java and China. From publications the names “Peking Man” and “Java Man” are well known. Today, these are referred to as Homo erectus. They are known by their very prominent supraorbital torus and postorbital constriction, alveolar prognathism and receding chin. With the widest part of the skull toward the bottom, it has a pentagonal shape. The rest of the skeleton is very little different from the modern skeleton. Fossil bones from Europe are scarce, but the little that have been found correspond with Erectus from the Far East. They date from the Middle Pleistocene.