The site of the first men of Sangiran is in the center of the island of Java in Indonesia, to 15 km in the north of the town of Solo, in the valley of the river of the same name. Its surface is of 48 km ². The site was registered in the Liste of the world heritage of UNESCO in 1996.

In 1934, the German Anthropologue Gustav von Koenigswald begins the exploration of this area. Excavations reveal Fossile S humanoïdes: it is the discovery of “the Homme of Java ” ( Pithecanthropus erectus ). Since, some sixty others Fossil S, whose enigmatic Meganthropus, was discovered there.

In 1937, Gustav von Koenigswald accommodated on the site of Sangiran the German paleoanthropologist Franz Weidenreich, come in Indonesia, to examine the remainders of the Homme of Java . It published, with this one, various work united on this discovery. In 1938, the two scientists jointly announced the discovery of a new cranium of Pithecanthropus ( P. robustus ). To the beginning of 1939, Koenigswald brought several specimens of Hominidé S Javanese to Weidenreich, which was with Beijing. The comparison between the Hominides of Sangiran and those of Choukoutien brought them to the conclusion which the specimens were narrowly related. They then decided to give up the kind Sinanthropus , while bringing back all the specimens to the kind of older name Pithecanthropus . Later, Pithecanthropus was placed in the kind Homo as a Homo erectus .