Crossword clues for pithecanthropus
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Pithecanthropus \Pith`e*can*thro"pus\ (p[i^]th`[-e]*k[a^]n*thr[=o]"p[u^]s), prop. n. [NL.; Gr. pi`qhkos ape + 'a`nqrwpos man.]
A hypothetical genus of primates intermediate between man and the anthropoid apes.
--Haeckel.A genus consisting of an extinct primate ( Pithecanthropus erectus) apparently intermediate between man and the existing anthropoid apes, known from bones first found in Java (hence called Java man) in 1891-92, and other bones found later. The species was renamed Homo erectus around 1960. The Javan bones are believed to be from 1.6 to 1.9 million years old, and include a thigh bone of the human type, two molar teeth intermediate between those of man and the anthropoids, and the calvaria of the skull, indicating a brain capacity of about 900 cubic centimeters, and resembling in form that of the Neanderthal man. Additional specimens of what are considerd as variants of the species have been found in China, Africa, and Europe. Homo erectus is currently believed to have evolved in Africa from Homo habilis, the first member of the genus Homo. Anatomically and physiologically, Homo erectus resembles contemporary humans except for having a stouter bone structure. Also [pl. -thropi], an animal of this genus. -- Pith`e*can"thrope, n. -- Pith`e*can"thro*poid, a.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
genus of extinct primates, 1895, from Modern Latin, literally "monkey-man," from Greek pithekos "ape" + anthropos "man" (see anthropo-). Coined 1868 by Haeckel as a name for a hypothetical link between apes and men (attested in English in this sense from 1876); applied by Dr. Eugène Dubois (1858-1940), physician of the Dutch army in Java, to remains he found there in 1891.
Wikipedia
- Redirect Homo
Usage examples of "pithecanthropus".
Looking back to that remote beginning we see that the span of time which includes the whole career of the First Men from Pithecanthropus to the Patagonian disaster is an unanalysable point.
One said it was the dryopithecus of Java, the other said it was pithecanthropus.
According to Weidenreich, Homo sapiens evolved from Gigantopithecus by way of Meganthropus and Pithecanthropus.
Dubois called it Anthropithecus erectus (later changed for technical reasons to Pithecanthropus erectus) and declared it the missing link between apes and humans.
Do they stay frozen at their present level while the rest of the human race moves on past them, until they are living fossils, as out of place as a pithecanthropus in a spaceship?
And the even more primitive Pithecanthropus people had roamed the world before them, and something else with an equally intricate name, and probably some other kinds of pre-men or sub-men, too, shaggy little naked ape-creatures that could more or less be considered to be our distant ancestors.
As they passed the barred entrance to a dim corridor, Tarzan saw within a great company of pithecanthropi of all ages and of both sexes, Ho-don as well as Waz-don, the majority of them squatted upon the stone floor in attitudes of utter dejection while some paced back and forth, their features stamped with the despair of utter hopelessness.
On the contrary, the names of the male hairy black pithecanthropi while having an even number of syllables begin with a vowel and end with a consonant.
And Metaxas was moving patiently up the line, pausing to stick it into this one, and the one next to her, and the next, and the next, and in his tireless fashion he balled right up the line until the spread-legged women grew hairy and chinless, the womenfolk of Pithecanthropus erectus, and there was Metaxas erectus still jazzing his way back to the beginning of time.
He had achieved the status of pithecanthropus erectus, at least, and might yet become a man again.
In short, it would convey to my purely unlegal intelligence only that the tracks were made by some descendant of the Pithecanthropus erectus wearing men's shoes on his nether limbs, sex and age unknown.
They made me feel that I was alive in the nineteenth century, a sort of atavistic remnant, a romantic shred, a soulful Pithecanthropus erectus.
It all seemed rather obscene to Morse, and reminded him of his junior-school history books, with their drawings of skulls labelled with such memorable names as Eoanthropus dawsoni, Pithecanthropus erectus, and the rest.
This creature is now called Pithecanthropus erectus, the walking ape man, and the little trayful of its bones is the only help our imaginations have as yet in figuring to ourselves the makers of the Eoliths.
If in some pathway of time they happened to exterminate their more intelligent rivals if somewhere pithecanthropus erectus survives and homo sapiens does not, well, in that pathway of time cannibalism is the custom of society.