Verhoeven's Living Negritos and the Story of Zakharias Ze
A Prehistory of Homo floresiensis
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2914441 |
|---|---|
| Authors | G Forth (0000-0001-6298-8665, University of Alberta, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 178 |
| Issue | 2-3 |
| Pages | 225-251 |
| Publication date | 2022-06-25 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Bijdragen tot de taal- land- en volkenkunde / Journal of the Humanities and Social Sciences of Southeast Asia (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0006-2294 • E-ISSN: 2213-4379 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.1163/22134379-bja10042 |
| OpenAlex | W4284688460 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 13 |
A Catholic priest and amateur palaeontologist, Father Theodor Verhoeven (SVD) is best known for his discovery of sites on Flores Island (Indonesia) that yielded fossilized remains of Middle Pleistocene stegodons and lithic materials suggesting early occupation by pre-sapiens hominins. Eventually, these finds influenced investigations that resulted in the discovery of Homo floresiensis in Liang Bua cave. Verhoeven's earliest fieldwork, however, concerned other Florenese caves, where he found Late Holocene remains of small-bodied Homo sapiens which he identified as 'negritos' or 'proto-negritos.' In this article, I present new evidence revealing that Verhoeven believed negritos survived on Flores as discrete populations during his own time and, moreover, that one such negrito was a fellow Catholic priest. Though Verhoeven died 13 years before the discovery of floresiensis, his views on both prehistoric and living 'negritos' suggest that he would likely-though ultimately incorrectly-have interpreted both as descendants of floresiensis and earlier hominin contemporaries of Middle Pleistocene stegodons. The significance of Verhoeven's palaeoanthropological and archaeological discoveries for subsequent, professional research illustrates one of the most remarkable collaborations between academics and amateurs in the history of anthropology
Amateur · Archaeology · Cave · Geography · Homo sapiens · Pleistocene · Prehistory · Sociology · Anthropology · History · Pacific and Southeast Asian Studies · Paleopathology and ancient diseases · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
Fission-track ages of stone tools and fossils on the east Indonesian island of Flores
Revised stratigraphy and chronology for Homo floresiensis at Liang Bua in Indonesia
Homo floresiensis-like fossils from the early Middle Pleistocene of Flores
Making Friends in the Rainforest
Racial Science and Human Diversity in Colonial Indonesia
Why Have the Peninsular “Negritos” Remained Distinct
Craniodental Affinities of Southeast Asia's “Negritos” and the Concordance with Their Genetic Affinities
Linguistic Evidence for Some Early Austronesian Taboos
Racial science and human diversity in colonial Indonesia
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |