Sangiran

Sangiran is an archaeological excavation site at the island of Java in Indonesia. The area comprises about 48 km² and is located in Central Java, about 15 kilometers north of Surakarta. In 1996 it was accepted as World Heritage by the UNESCO.

In 1934 the anthropologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald started to examine the area. During excavations in the next years fossils of some of the first known human ancestors, Pithecanthropus erectus ("Java Man"), were found here. Until today about 60 more fossils, among them Meganthropus, were also found here.