Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how visual reconstructions of the first ‘missing link’ species, Pithecanthropus erectus (‘Java Man’), discovered in the Dutch East Indies (Indonesia) contribute to the racialised, othering gaze of formerly colonised peoples in purportedly objective scientific representations.

Paper long abstract:

Between 1891-1892, Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois discovered what was considered as the first ‘missing link’ species between humans and apes in the Dutch East Indies, presently Indonesia. The discovery of a molar, a skullcap, and a femur were attributed to a new species named Pithecanthropus erectus, colloquially, ‘Java Man’. Despite scant physical evidence, dozens of visual reconstructions emerged from his discovery. These images informed physical reconstructions exhibited in museums across Europe, the UK, and the US, each displaying widely varied physical characteristics. However, what were purported to be scientific renderings, actually arose from an amalgamation of racial and social stereotypes, informed by Social Darwinism, early anthropology/ethnology, and older racialised imaginings of bestial humans and chimaeras from foreign lands. Pithecanthropus’ status in the early 19th century as the first pre-Homo sapiens species discovered outside of Europe conflated it with notions of degenerate non-European races. Java Man’s fraught origins from a Dutch colony, enabled by mechanisms of colonial exploitation, further complicates these visual reconstructions. The latest of these, unveiled in 2019 in Leiden’s Naturalis museum, is a coquettish, sexualised dark-skinned woman, whose “shy smile” accompanies the original bones which the Indonesian government has requested to be repatriated (Naturalis website). While visual and museum anthropologists have long considered the implications of the "othering" gaze in ethnographic displays of extant communities, it is crucial to also consider how formerly colonised nations are “othered” even within their prehistory, as this practice continues today and actively shapes how we understand our shared human history.