AbstractEugène Dubois was the pioneer of human origins research in South‐East Asia, specifically on two of the islands, Sumatra and Java, now included in Indonesia. Dubois was a polymath, whose research interests embraced encephalization and hydrology as well as paleoanthropology. His interpretations of the hominin fossil evidence he collected, which he eventually assigned to Pithecanthropus erectus, changed over the years, and he evidently felt defensive about those interpretations, but in his 1894 paper he presents cogent reasons for his decision. The taxon he introduced is still recognized, and while it is no longer seen as “the” link between fossil apes and modern humans, it is currently one of the longest surviving hominin taxa.