COMPARATIVE STUDY OF THE FEMURS OF HOMO ERECTUS AND OF RECENT MALE THAIS

VADHANA SUBHAVAN and SOOD SANGVICHIEN

Summary: The subject of this study is a plaster cast of a left femur belonging to Homo erectus or Pithecanthropus, discovered by Dubois in the Trinil bed of Solo River, Central Java, Indonesia.

          The cast has similar characters to the recent male Thai femurs used for comparison, except for an area of exostosis on the medial side, extending from the lesser trochanter for a distance of about 9.9 cm. In addition to this pathological abnormality, another important characteristic of the Homo erectus femur is that when placed in the normal anatomical position with the two condyles in the same horizontal plane, it makes a very small angle with the vertical plane as compared to the bigger angle made by a recent male Thai femur.

          Seventeen measurements were made on lengths, breadths and circumferences and three on angles. Four indices were calculated. It can be concluded that nearly all the diameters and indices of the Homo erectus femur lie in the higher part of the range of variation while a few are greater than the range. The head and lower end were relatively large, as compared to the overall length. This indicates that Homo erectus was no taller than a rather tall modern Thai but had bigger and stronger legs.

          The main difference is that there is no angle of obliquity or condylo-diaphyseal angle as compared to the 5"-12" observed in recent male Thai femurs. This indicates that Homo erectus could not stand erect with his knees touching each other.

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Museum of Prehistory, Department of Anatomy, Faculty of Medicine, Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University.

Received 13 November 1975