On March 22 2015, zooarchaeologist Dr. José Joordens gave a lecture in Eijsden (near Maastricht, the Netherlands) in a place situated about 100 metres from Eugène Dubois’ birth house.
Topic: the discovery of an intentionally scrached shell, and of a number of shells which were collected as food, and opened by means of (very probably) shark teeth used as a drilling instrument. The intentional manipulation of the shells has been dated at roughly 0,5 million years BP. The shells were originally excavated by Eugène Dubois at Trinil, Java, at the end of the 19th century. They were found in the same stratigraphic layer as the Pithecanthropus fossils, the famous ‘Knochenschicht’ – ‘bone layer’).
Ms. Joordens presented the new facts, and then elaborated on the new and fascinating perspectives opened for further research.
As a tribute to her splendid work Ms. José Joordens was elected ‘Fellow of the Foundation Eugène Dubois’.
