VON KOENIGSWALD, GUSTAV HEINRICH RALPH

(b. Berlin, Germany, 13 November 1902;

d. Bad Homburg, Germany, 10 July 1982), paleontology, paleoanthropology, human evolution, mammal evolution, geology, ethnology.

Between 1937 and 1941 von Koenigswald discovered hominid fossils at Sangiran in Java, which is among the most prolific hominid sites on a worldwide scale. He discovered three fragmented skulls, five jaw fragments, and numerous teeth of the Pleistocene hominid Pithecanthropus(now Homo erectus). Von Koenigswald’s finds underlined the central role of Pithecanthropus in human evolution and corroborated earlier findings by Eugène Dubois. Von Koenigswald left Java in 1945 and took over the chair of paleontology at Rijksuniversiteit at Utrecht in the Netherlands. There he continued his research on fossil hominids and their geology and paleontology in the Pleistocene of southeast Java.

The Road to Java. Von Koenigswald was born in Berlin and raised in Germany. He studied geology and paleontology at the universities in Berlin, Tübingen, Cologne, and Munich. He completed his doctoral studies in Munich in 1928 under the direction of Erich Kaiser, on the Permian Red Beds of the Weidener Bucht.

As an assistant to the Bavarian State Collection in Munich he was approached by Ferdinand Broili who asked him whether he would be interested in working as a mammal paleontologist at the Netherlands Geological Survey in Java. Since he was interested in fossil hominids, von Koenigswald accepted the opportunity and went to Bandung in 1930, forty years after the Dutch anatomist Eugène Dubois had made his important discovery of Pithecanthropus erectus on the island of Java. Von Koenigswald’s primary task at the Geological Survey was to work out a fossil mammal stratigraphy for the Javanese Pleistocene in close cooperation with colleagues from geology who were carrying out mapping campaigns thereby elaborating the lithostratigraphy. Soon after his arrival he got involved in the excavation campaign the Geological Survey carried out at Ngandong in East Java. Eleven hominid skulls were found in Pleistocene river sediments, but von Koenigswald was not directly involved in their discovery. The excavations were led by Carel ter Haar and the hominids went to Batavia (now Jakarta) for description and comparison. Von Koenigswald continued to describe mammal species and elaborated his stratigraphy, but because of severe financial cutbacks the Geological Survey was forced to dismiss von Koenigswald in 1934.

Von Koenigswald decided not to return to Europe but to stay in Java and continue with his work. He was allowed to make use of the equipment and library at Bandung and, supplied with funds from Dutch foundations, he was able to resume his studies. He went into the field and discovered stone tools, which attracted the attention of the French Jesuit paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who had participated in the search for hominids at Zhoukoudian in China. Teilhard de Chardin visited von Koenigswald early in 1936, encouraging him to proceed with his studies in Javanese prehistory.

This visit emerged as a decisive turning point for von Koenigswald’s career. Teilhard de Chardin realized that the continuation of von Koenigswald’s work was permanently endangered due to funding limitations. He approached the Carnegie Foundation and through his mediation von Koenigswald successfully applied for a grant.

Soon after Teilhard de Chardin left Java a new hominid fossil was discovered in East Java, north of Mojokerto, in 1936. This time von Koenigswald did not let the opportunity pass and—supported by Franz Weidenreich, the German anatomist in charge of the Zhoukoudian excavations at Beijing—he published a description of the Mojokerto hominid. It was the cranium of a young child removed from stratigraphically old deposits and von Koenigswald quickly realized the importance of this find. He went on a presentation journey through the United States and Europe in the fall of 1936 and when he returned to Java in spring 1937, he had acquired sufficient funding to conduct exploration and collection at a new site in Central Java called Sangiran. In fact, von Koenigswald

was able to ask his collector to begin collecting right away, while he was still traveling. As a result a new hominid specimen already awaited him upon his return.

The Conflict with Dubois. Although von Koenigswald’s primary task at the Geological Survey did not involve human paleontology, he knew, of course, about the famous finds made by Dubois in the last decade of the nineteenth century and he hoped to find more. The opportunity came with the discovery of a child’s skull in East Java in February 1936. The find itself was made during a mapping campaign by a mantri, a local employee of the Geological Survey, who sent the specimen to von Koenigswald at Bandung. Von Koenigswald sent pictures to Dubois to seek his opinion on the fossil. The new discovery was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Academy of Sciences in Amsterdam.

The interpretation of the find was nevertheless difficult because von Koenigswald had no training in human anatomy. From a geological viewpoint, the cranium seemed to be quite old. The only fossil human form with a comparable age from the Pleistocene of Java was Pithecanthropus, but nothing was known about the anatomy of Pithecanthropus children. Due to its extraordinary age, however, von Koenigswald was convinced that the cranium represented a Pithecanthropus child. But since he was unable to find convincing proof, he proposed the name Homo modjokertensis, a careless challenge to Dubois, who was convinced that Pithecanthropus represented an intermediate form between humans and primates and thus could not be regarded as a member of the genus Homo. In his reply, Dubois pointed to the fact that the skull showed an unexpected height whereas the Pithecanthropus skull from Trinil is characterized by its extreme lowness. From an anatomical viewpoint, it was far more plausible to assume that the child belonged to the Ngandong group and not to Pithecanthropus.

Upon his return to Java, von Koenigswald learned that a new hominid fossil had been found at a site west of Trinil, at Sangiran. It was a fragmented right mandibular ramus. This time, von Koenigswald immediately reported the find to Dubois and promised to send pictures, a promise that was forgotten due to another exciting find at Sangiran, a fragmented cranium. The description of the mandible was published in November 1937. Von Koenigswald attributed the mandible to Pithecanthropus and added an extensive discussion of the human nature of Pithecanthropus.

The first pictures to reach Dubois were those in the publication, and he started to compare the mandibular fragment with his own find from Kedung Brubus. Dubois stressed a number of anatomical differences between the Kedung Brubus fragment and the mandible from Sangiran. He noticed, moreover, a striking size difference between both of the specimens. Unfortunately, von Koenigswald’s publication contained a small but decisive printing error concerning the total length of the fragment. In fact the specimen is 1 centimeter shorter than the published length. Dubois took the given value as correct and assuming that the pictures showed reduced representations, he enlarged von Koenigswald’s plates correspondingly. As a result, the Kedung Brubus fragment looked tiny side by side with the Sangiran mandible. Anyone could notice at first glance that both of the fragments could never be attributed to the same form. It is thus not surprising that Dubois again concluded that the new mandible was erroneously attributed to Pithecanthropus by von Koenigswald and belonged to the only fossil human known from Java, the Ngandong group. Von Koenigswald corrected that error only in 1940 in his comprehensive publication on all the early hominid specimens from Sangiran.

From spring 1938 onward their correspondence reflects an advancing discordance in their relationship. Von Koenigswald did not publish comparisons of his material with the Ngandong finds as Dubois demanded and Dubois in turn quoted in his publications from von Koenigswald’s letters without asking for permission.

Meanwhile, von Koenigswald’s initial announcement of the Sangiran cranium appeared in December 1937. Several pictures were printed along with the announcement, in particular a plate showing the thirty fragments of which the skull initially consisted. Again Dubois applied the measuring method that in his eyes already proved useful with the Sangiran mandible. He measured the fragments on the photos and compared their length with the corresponding distances on the picture of the reconstructed skull. On this basis he concluded that the reconstruction had not been properly done. The cranial fragment from Sangiran was damaged by the collectors during the collection process. However, a fossil specimen with fresh breaks is quite easy to reconstruct. Mistakes would either indicate malicious forgery or sheer incompetence.

Von Koenigswald was beside himself with rage, all the more since Dubois again quoted from his letters without asking. With his initial discoveries von Koenigswald wrote to Dubois seeking advice from an elder colleague. Three discoveries and two years later their relationship had deteriorated into distrust, jealousy, and mutual accusations. Most of their dispute was conducted in publications under the eyes of a scientific audience. Von Koenigswald was worried that this conflict could tarnish his scientific reputation because Dubois was very influential in the Netherlands. However, these fears were unfounded. Von Koenigswald was deeply hurt by Dubois’s continued breaches of confidence culminating in the accusation of having falsified a fossil reconstruction. Decades after Dubois’s death in 1940 von Koenigswald was still angry. However, a continued lack of diligence in his publications as well as undiplomatic and imprecise arguments certainly enhanced Dubois criticisms about von Koenigswald’s expertise.

Fieldwork at Sangiran. Supported by the Carnegie Foundation von Koenigswald was able to proceed with the excavations at Sangiran and several hominid fossils were discovered in quick succession. The first mandible was discovered in late 1936 and the second hominid specimen, a partial cranium, was found in August 1937. Sangiran 2 (or Pithecanthropus II) is quite similar to the famous Trinil skullcap. Dubois’s suspicions were unsubstantiated in this case and so it was accepted that a second Pithecanthropus had been found.

In September 1938 during a visit, Franz Weidenreich identified a third specimen from the Sangiran dome, fragments of a new skull. Weidenreich and von Koenigswald were later able to collect further fragments on site. In order to provide better descriptions and a reconstruction of the Pithecanthropus skull, both researchers decided that von Koenigswald should visit Weidenreich’s laboratory in Beijing as soon as possible. Von Koenigswald left Bandung for Beijing in the first days of January 1938.

Prior to his departure he received another important hominid find from Sangiran. It was a maxillary, a part of the Pithecanthropus skeleton that had not yet been found. With excitement the two scientists recognized fresh breaks on the posterior part of the maxilla. Von Koenigswald urged his collectors to return to the site and search for further pieces. The search was successful and a few weeks later, a package arrived in Beijing containing seven large fragments of an almost complete cranium. The larger part of the skull base was preserved, but unfortunately there was no connection with the maxilla.

Both parts of Sangiran 4 (or Pithecanthropus IV) were prepared in Beijing. Careful drawings and casts were made by Hu Chengzi, an assistant of Weidenreich at the Cenozoic Research Laboratory. Von Koenigswald returned to Bandung in April 1938 with drawings, casts, and anatomical descriptions made under the advice of an experienced human anatomist. The anatomical descriptions made up the larger part of the manuscript of one of von Koenigswald’s most important publications, a summary of the early discoveries at Sangiran, which was completed and submitted in September 1939.

Upon his return von Koenigswald resumed his work at Sangiran. Late in 1939 another mandible was found, Sangiran 5 (or Pithecanthropus C). The specimen possessed a rather strange anatomy, but due to deteriorating working conditions, von Koenigswald was unable to announce the find appropriately. In April 1941 another mandibular fragment was discovered at Sangiran that was by far the largest of all mandibular remains from Sangiran. Its huge dimensions led von Koenigswald to create a new species, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus. He completed a publication on both of the specimens in spring 1942 but the manuscript got lost and has never been published.

Von Koenigswald and his family spent World War II as prisoners in various camps in Java. Upon their release late in 1945 the whole family was ill and weak. In the summer of 1946 the von Koenigswald family left Java for New York. Von Koenigswald was allowed to take the precious hominid collection from Java along. All fossil specimens survived the war undamaged because they were hidden by friends and colleagues and only casts were kept at the Geological Survey. Only one of the Ngandong skulls was seized by the Japanese military and brought to the Imperial collection in Tokyo. However, that skull was discovered soon after the war and returned to von Koenigswald in December 1946.

In 1946 von Koenigswald brought the fossil specimens from Java to Weidenreich at a completely unexpected though highly welcome site, the American Museum of Natural History in New York. Von Koenigswald had recovered from his ordeal and both of the scientists resumed their joint work on human evolution in Southeast Asia, now better equipped with hominids than ever before. Their concepts on human evolution in Southeast Asia had developed in different, although complementary directions. Weidenreich promulgated his idea of giant ancestors in human evolution, a view supported by von Koenigswald’s stratigraphic approach.

Based on geology, von Koenigswald divided the Pleistocene in Java into two deposits of different ages, the lower Pleistocene Pucangan formation with the Jetis fauna and the middle Pleistocene Kabuh formation containing the Trinil fauna. Both of the formations were hominid bearing and the deposits ranged from the Sangiran dome in Central Java to Mojokerto in East Java. The classical Pithecanthropus, to which von Koenigswald attributed Dubois’s initial finds in Trinil and Kedung Brubus as well as the first two skulls from Sangiran, was found in the younger Kabuh formation. According to von Koenigswald the Mojokerto child skull originated from the older Pucangan formation. The first Sangiran mandible, the Sangiran 4 cranium, and the huge Meganthropus mandible were collected from these layers. At Sangiran these two beds are lithologically separated by a third layer, the “Grenzbank” (or boundary layer). This Grenzbank layer also contained hominid fossils, for instance, the enigmatic Sangiran 5 mandible.

From this stratigraphic distribution von Koenigswald derived the following picture. The huge Meganthropus as well as the robust Sangiran 4 skull represent the oldest fossil humans in Java. The smaller, although still large, form represented by the Sangiran 5 mandible was found in the Grenzbank layer. The fossil humans originating from the Kabuh formation possess a more gracile anatomy and represent the classic Pithecanthropus in Java. The Ngandong skulls are stratigraphically younger and represent an enlarged and thus advanced form. Von Koenigswald considered them to be tropical Neanderthals, but he never devoted much attention to them.

This view corresponded to Weidenreich’s anatomical view of human evolution, although it was mainly rooted in stratigraphy. Von Koenigswald used anatomical comparisons and taxonomic descriptions to reflect the stratigraphic arrangement. In his mind, the chronological sequence of anatomies provided a direct representation of evolutionary pathways. Von Koenigswald was not primarily concerned with the mechanisms of evolution.

A New Home in the Netherlands. In spring 1948 von Koenigswald took over the professorship of paleontology at the Rijksuniversiteit in Utrecht in the Netherlands. All the hominid fossils moved along with him, thereby finding a new home at the institute’s collections. Now based in Utrecht, von Koenigswald enlarged the scope of his studies, in space as well as in time.

In the early 1950s he went to South Africa in order to compare the collection of Sangiran hominids with Australopithecus. He carried out his studies jointly with John Robinson. Since Australopithecus represented another potential candidate as a human ancestor with a very robust dentition, it was an important question whether there was a particular relation between Pithecanthropus from Java and South African australopithecines. The relation between the African and Javanese hominids kept him busy until 1964. Together with the South African pale-oanthropologist Phillip V. Tobias, he carried out a comparison of his Sangiran material with the hominid collection from Olduvai. They concluded that the most basal hominid known from Java, Meganthropus, represents an advanced form compared to Australopithecus and that it corresponds to early hominids like Homo habilis from Olduvai. Although the samples differ in some respects, Tobias and von Koenigswald noticed remarkable parallels between the Asian and African sequences.

For two decades von Koenigswald’s work focused upon the question of early human ancestry and our primate relatives. The latter topic was particularly relevant for him since he described a new giant primate from South China, Gigantopithecus blacki, which was only known from a few teeth. Von Koenigswald considered it to be a huge anthropoid, a view that has recently gained support by in situ discoveries.

He visited Southeast Asia a number of times, including on the occasion of the Indo-Pacific Congress held in Manila in 1953. His studies at Sangiran dome were resumed by Pieter Marks, Teuku Jacob, and Sartono, who themselves made important hominid finds. Taking advantage of his professorship, von Koenigswald tried to enable and encourage Indonesian scholars to acquire scientific training and create an infrastructure on their own. He supported research in Indonesia rather than carrying out research projects himself and carefully followed its progress without getting too personally involved. This was certainly a result of his experiences with Dubois. Forming a sound scientific infrastructure was, moreover, a motivation for von Koenigswald’s decision to return the Mojokerto skull and the Ngandong hominid collection to Indonesia in 1979.

He now devoted his attention to studies of mammal migrations into the Sunda archipelago. Two regions provide potential candidates for Pleistocene mammal faunas in the Sunda Islands, northern India and Pakistan on one hand, and south China on the other. Together with colleagues from the Natural History Museum in Leiden, Netherlands, von Koenigswald tried to identify potential routes and the chronology of migration events. In 1966 he carried out an excursion to the Siwalik formation in Pakistan. The primate fossils collected during this occasion remained a focus of his studies.

Since chronology was such a critical question for his views on human evolution, improving the dating of hominid sites in Southeast Asia was another important issue. He recognized distinctive layers of tektites in the Sangiran profile. These glass meteorites are the result of a geologically instantaneous event, namely the impact of a meteorite. They result from melting rocks in the course of the impact event and are distributed over a vast area. Determining the number of tektite layers in Southeast Asian deposits and identifying single impact events thus provides distinctive time signals. Von Koenigswald meticulously described his tektite collection.

A Lively Retirement at Frankfurt. After his retirement from the professorship at Utrecht’s Rijksuniversiteit in 1968, von Koenigswald turned his attention to one last task. He made plans to set up a center for research on human evolution. At the instigation of Helmut de Terra, a new department for paleoanthropology was established at the Senckenberg research institute in Frankfurt with the support of the Reimers Foundation. Von Koenigswald and his fossil collection moved for one last time, and for a period of fifteen years he continued his studies of fossil primates and explored yet new research fields, such as ethnology and prehistory. He remained deeply involved in research on human evolution in Indonesia and Europe alike.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

WORKS BY VON KOENIGSWALD

“Erste Mitteilung ueber einen fossilen Hominiden aus dem Altpleistocaen Ostjavas.” Proceedings of the Section of Sciences Nederlandse Koninkelijke Akademie van Wetenschapen 39 (1936): 1000–1009.

“Ein Unterkieferfragment des Pithecanthropus aus den Trinilschichten Mitteljavas.” Proceedings of the Koninkelijke Akademie van Wetenschapen 40 (1937): 883–893.

“Pithecanthropus Received into the Human Family.” Illustrated London News, 11 December 1937.

“Neue Pithecanthropus-Funde 1936–1938.” Wetenschappelijke Mededeelingen van den Dienst van den Mijnbouw 28 (1940): 1–232.

“Pithecanthropus, Meganthropus and the Australopithecinae.” Nature 173 (1954): 795–797.

Meeting Prehistoric Man. London: Scientific Book Club, 1956.

With Phillip V. Tobias. “A Comparison between the Olduvai Hominines and Those of Java and Some Implications for Hominid Phylogeny.” Nature 204 (1964): 515–518.

OTHER SOURCES

Franzen, Jens Lorenz. “In Memoriam Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald 1902–1982.” Senckenbergiana lethaea 64 (1983): 381–402. An obituary in German including a complete bibliography.

Huffman, O. Frank, Pat Shipman, Christine Hertler, et al. “Historical Evidence of the 1936 Mojokerto Skull Discovery, East Java.” Journal of Human Evolution 48 (2005): 321–363. Detailed historical account on the Mojokerto find.

Leinders, J. J., Fachroel Aziz, Paul Y. Sondaar, et al. “The Age of the Hominid-Bearing Deposits of Java: State of the Art.” Geologie en Mijnbouw 64 (1985): 167–173. Revision of von Koenigswald’s stratigraphy of the Pleistocene in Java.

Tobias, Phillip V. “The Life and Work of Professor Dr. G. H. R. von Koenigswald.” In Aufsaetze und Reden der Senckenbergischen Naturforschenden Gesellschaft 34 (1984): 25–96. A thorough account of his life and work.

Watanabe, Naotune, and Darwin Kadir, eds. Quaternary Geology of the Hominid Fossil Bearing Formations in Java. Special Publications of the Geological Research and Development Centre 4. Jakarta: Republic of Indonesia, Ministry of Mines and Energy, Directorate General of Geology and Mineral Resources, 1985. Comprehensive account of the geology and paleontology of the Sangiran dome.

Christine Hertler