释义 |
pithecanthropus|pɪθɪˈkænθrəʊpəs| Also in Greek form pithecanthropos, or anglicized as pithecanthrope; also with capital initial. [mod.L., f. Gr. πίθηκ-ος ape + ἄνθρωπος man.] 1. [(E. Haeckel Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte (1868) xix. 507).] A hypothetical creature bridging the gap in evolutionary development between apes and man.
1876E. R. Lankester tr. Haeckel's Hist. Creat. II. 293 These Ape-like Men, or Pithecanthropi, very probably existed towards the end of the Tertiary period. 1877Shields Final Philos. 146 [Man's] descent from a tailed ancestor, to which he [Haeckel] gives the zoölogical name of Pithecanthropos or the primitive ape-man. 1883tr. Joly's Man bef. Metals 17 Prehistoric man..has even been sometimes called man-monkey, or pithecanthrope. 2. [(E. Dubois Pithecanthropus erectus (1894) 1).] The fossil hominid first described from remains found by Eugene Dubois (1858–1940) in Java in 1891, now included in the species Homo erectus; = Java man s.v. java.
1895Nature 5 Dec. 115/2 Dr. Dubois placed Pithecanthropus below the point of devarication of the anthropoid apes from the human line. 1895Cuningham in Nature 28 Feb. 429/1 The so-called Pithecanthropus is in the direct human line. 1898Gadow tr. Haeckel's Last Link 24 Dr. Dubois exhibited the cranium of Pithecanthropus. 1905J. McCabe tr. Haeckel's Evol. Man II. xxiii. 632 The pithecanthropus excited the liveliest interest, as the long-sought transitional form between man and the ape. 1933A. S. Romer Man & Vertebrates xi. 239 Some scientists have claimed that Pithecanthropus is an ape, far below human status. 1933N. Douglas Looking Back II. 301 Science has a knack of filling up those gaps when least you expect it, as in the case of radium and pithecanthropus. 1957L. Eiseley Immense Journey 101 The finding of the Pithecanthropus skull cap had bolstered this view. So pithecanˈthropic a., of or pertaining to pithecanthropus; also fig., resembling an ape, clumsy; pitheˈcanthropine a., resembling or closely related to the fossil hominid once included in the genus Pithecanthropus; also as n.; pitheˈcanthropoid a. = prec; also fig.
1890Cent. Dict., Pithecanthropoid. 1897Open Court XI. 256 The pithecanthropic mummery, colloquially called monkey-business, connected with closing one nostril and breathing through the other and then of closing both till the compressed columnar air-current is imagined to bump against the triangular fundament of Kundalini. 1917Q. Rev. July 35 Degeneracy, as seen in idiots,..due to a reversion to the pithecanthropic element. 1925Bull. Geol. Soc. China IV. 177 Sooner or later pithecanthropine remains will be recovered from the Siwaliks. 1929A. Crowley Spirit of Solitude I. xvii. 198, I was absorbed in ‘The Cloud on the Sanctuary’, reading it again and again without being put off by the Pharisaical, priggish and pithecanthropoid notes of its translator, Madame de Steiger. 1931A. Keith New Discov. Antiq. Man 293 The greatest number of these [characters] link these ancient Chinamen to the Pithecanthropic type of Java. 1958L. Durrell Mountolive xiii. 251 He mopped his brow continually, and gave his ingratiating pithecanthropoid grimace. 1958F. E. Zeuner Dating Past (ed. 4) ix. 304 At Ternifine in North Africa another pithecanthropine type of man proved to be associated with a primitive Acheulian industry. 1959J. D. Clark Prehist. S. Afr. iv. 77 In Africa the cranial form of the Pithecanthropoid type of man may have undergone a fairly rapid development. Ibid., The third and most probable explanation is that the Pithecanthropic stock early evolved..directly into a basic type of Homo sapiens. 1960G. Durrell Zoo in my Luggage ii. 44 His Pithecanthropic features split into a wide grin of glad recognition. 1961Times 5 Sept. 13/5 The pithecanthropines were sometimes grouped with Neanderthal and modern man in the sub-family Homininae. 1962Advancement of Sci. XVIII. 424/1 The advanced pithecanthropine skull recently discovered..has been dated approximately. 1976Sci. Amer. Jan. 96/3 A pithecanthropine grade has been recorded in a unique 800-millilitre endocast from Lake Rudolph in Kenya that is almost three million years old; the better-known true pithecanthropines are about a million years old. 1979‘C. Brand’ Rose in Darkness v. 44 Like an archaeologist, building up the whole structure of ancient man from a single tooth..pithecanthropoid man. |