Individual Paper
6. Using the Arts, Media and Culture: Contestations and Collaborations
Among Indonesia’s calls for restituting its displaced cultural patrimony, the recently reinvigorated demand for the return of “Java Man,” the first ‘missing link’ fossil ever discovered, stands out. While debates rage over whether biological remains are a nation’s cultural patrimony, this case is notable as the bones themselves are scant, and have since been re-categorised as Homo erectus—not the unique missing link species it was once thought to be. Instead, it has been visual reconstructions of the hominid that intrigued the world for over two centuries in increasingly complex and politically charged renderings. Expanding beyond Java Man’s restitution, this paper uncovers the controversial object biography of Java Man, not just as a biological specimen, but also as a product of colonial networks and a mirror for Social Darwinism Although Dutch anatomist Eugene Dubois’ discovery was limited to the skullcap, molar, and femur of Java Man, multiple artistic renderings of what the prehistoric hominid may have looked like ignited imaginations in textbooks, scientific journals, and museums. These purportedly scientific reconstructions of the missing link were extrapolated from scant empirical evidence, and were in reality an amalgamation of centuries-old references. Nonetheless, images of Java Man played a crucial role in reifying the controversial 'missing link' between modern humans and apes—both for scientific and lay communities. Drawing on History, Art History, and Visual Anthropology, this paper analyses how visual reconstructions of Java Man were, and are, producers of contested knowledge within the intellectual history of evolution in Indonesia, Europe, and the US.
Fiona Asokacitta
University of Oxford, United Kingdom