Subsequent discoveries in the 1920s and 1930s from the site of Zhoukoudian, China, of fossils with similar characteristics-originally designated Sinanthropus pekinensis-raisedthe question of a possible evolutionary relationship between these regional samples.
Eugene Dubois first identified and described a new human-like set of Indonesian fossils at the end of the 19th century, naming the specimens Pithecanthropus erectus (upright, ape-man) because of their combination of bipedality and a brain size much smaller than living humans. Dubois had specifically been looking for the missing link between apes and humans, and for him the combination of a human-like body and ape-like brain represented just that (Shipman 2002). Subsequent discoveries in the 1920s and 1930s from the site of Zhoukoudian, China, of fossils with similar characteristics-originally designated Sinanthropus pekinensis-raisedthe question of a possible evolutionary relationship between these regional samples. Today, these two samples, along with a much larger collection of fossils from Asia, Africa, and Europe, are most commonly referred to simply as Homo erectus.