| Abstract: |
Since their discovery 90 years ago, the interpretation of the hominine fossils from Trinil have been continuously evolving, especially in certain aspects. Differences in opinion have arisen concerning their taxonomy and antiquity, and concerning their anatomy, pathology, ecology, demography, culture, behaviour, and evolution. In this paper only some aspects of their taxonomy and behaviour as extrapolated from the finds will be touched upon. From the taxonomic viewpoint the interpretation of Trinil man ranges from a giant gibbon to Homo sapiens sapiens, and the methods used range from typology to numerical taxonomy, and the vriteria employed range from anatomy and grology to neurolinguistics and genetics. For a tudent believing, in the absolute universality of science, a taxonomic study would be very instructive indeed. A surey of the evolution of evolutionary theories will reveal how Malthusianism, social Darwinism, racism, Marxism, sociobiology, "creation science" etc. influence taxonomy and phylogeny as well as the reconstruction of cultural behaviour of modern man frequently observed in the in the last decades in the form of murders, violence, sadism, riots,a nd wars has been explained to have its genetic basis inevitably inherited from their earliest ancestors. The author emphasized the importance of restraining fanatism and utilizing an open-ended taxonomy in determining phylogeny and the evolution of hominid taxa, since the hypodigm increases steadily and the scientific paradigm also undergoes evolution in such an insecure discipline as paleoanthropolgy.
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