Discoveries have become popular, leading us to talk about "Neanderthals," "Peking Man," and "Java Man." Can these discoveries be used to construct a clear line of human development?

Most scientists today don't consider Neanderthals a direct evolutionary link to humans. They view them as a side branch of the evolutionary tree. Java Man is also starting to look a bit suspicious as a human ancestor. The first discoveries were made in the 1990s by Dutch physician Eugene Dubois. He was specifically searching for the "missing link" that, as Darwin's theory predicted, would connect modern humans with prehistoric apes. Dubois's first find in Java was a skullcap resembling an ape's skull. About a year later, fifteen meters away, he found a femur, which he considered somewhat primitive but still similar to a human femur. He concluded that the skullcap and femur belonged to the same creature. This is how Java Man arose. Java Man is classified as a member of the species Homo erectus. The sedimentary layers in which these remains were found date back to 800,000 years ago. However, in 1973, English scientists Michael Day and T.I. Molleson carefully examined a Java Man femur and found that it was anatomically indistinguishable from modern humans, but significantly different from Homo erectus femurs found in China and Africa. Based on this, they concluded that the femur did not belong to a Java Man skull. In 1929, Davidson Black reported the discovery of Peking Man fossils in Zhoukoudian (formerly Chukutien) in China. Currently classified as Homo erectus, the Peking Man specimens were lost during World War II. Peking Man was traditionally described as a caveman who mastered the craft of stone toolmaking, hunting, and fire. However, many influential researchers believed this view was incorrect. They viewed Peking Man as the victim of a more advanced hominid, whose skeletal remains had not yet been found. So it is difficult to find a logical line of development between these findings.