Current events zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQ F. Skmah Did they also make stone tools? zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcb U.R.A. 184 au CX.R.S., Must!um National d’hlistoira Naturelle, IPH, 1, rue RenC Panhard F-75013 Paris, France and Laboratoire de G&xnagnCtisme, 94107St-Maur-des- Foss&, France A.-M. %mah ORSTOM, Laboratoire d’ArchC&gie, BP.A5 NOUMI?A Cedex, .Nouvelle-Cal&donie, France and Mus&m .National d’Histoire flaturelle, U.R.A. 184 du C.N.R.S., France T. Djubiantono Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 31. Raya Condet Pejaten 4,3akarta Selatan, Indonesia H. T. Simanjuntak Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi .Nasional, 31. Raya Condet Pejaten 4, Jakarta Selatan, Indonesia Journal of Human Evolution (1992) 23,439% 446 Introduction zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPON Over a century ago, the discovery of a fossil hominid in Java, Pithecanthropus erectus, now recognised as the Southeast Asian form of Homo erectus (Wood, 1984), opened the era of human paleontology research. Despite strong efforts made to find the cultural remains of Pithecanthropus, all palaeolithic artefacts discovered until now on Java have been assigned by researchers to more recent human populations, with the exception oftwo isolated pieces from Sambungmacan, probably made by Solo man. Following on R. P. Soejono’s palaeolithic research in Sangiran (Soejono, 1982)) we carried out survey and subsequent excavation in Ngebung, which lies in the northwestern pa.rt of the Sangiran dome, Central Java, which has led to the discovery of archaeological layers within the middle Pleistocene Kabuh beds. The site, presently studied by an Indonesian-French team, has already provided us with several stone tools, including larger flake artefacts and bolas. Such a find adds important data to a never ending debate “did Pithecanthropus use stone tools?” (Bartstra, 1989; SCmah et al., 1990; Pope, 1989; Bellwood, 1985) and opens a new field to prehistoric research in Java. Did zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Pithecanthropus use stone tools? Up to now, only three artefact-bearing sites have been related to the Javanese Pithecanthropus, two of which have been much discussed (Figure 1a). 0047-2484/92/l 10439+08 $08.00/O 0 1992 Academic Press Limited