Rediscovery of the late pleistocene punung hominin sites and the discovery of a new site Gunung Dawung in East Java

In the 1930s VON KOENIGSWALD collected a fauna from two Pleistocene deposits, close to the village of Punung, East Java, in which hominin remains were found in association with mammals which clearly indicate the presence of a tropical rainforest, like orang-utans (Pongo) and gibbons (Hylobates). Although the Punung fauna is of scientific importance for understanding the distribution and evolution of mammals, including hominins, in Australasia, the location of the deposits was unknown. In the late 1990s BOSSCHA ERDBRINK, who was present during the excavations in the 1930s, released photographs made by him and he expressed his willingness to help locate the original sites. In 2003 a joint Dutch-Indonesian team of Naturalis at Leiden and the Geological Museum at Bandung visited the region of Punung and rediscovered the two original Punung sites. In addition, we found and documented fossils in situ stemming from a tropical rainforest at a new site, Gunung Dawung. © E. Schweizerbart'sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (Nägele u. Obermiller), 2006.