Raymond Dart
Encyclopedia
Raymond Arthur Dart was an Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n anatomist and anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus was an early hominid, an australopithecine, who lived between 2–3 million years ago in the Pliocene. In common with the older Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus was slenderly built, or gracile, and was thought to have been a direct ancestor of modern humans. Fossil...
, an extinct
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in the province Northwest.
Early life
Dart was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, the son of a farmer and tradesman. He studied at Ipswich Grammar SchoolIpswich Grammar School
Ipswich Grammar School is an independent, non-denominational, day and boarding school for boys, located in Ipswich, a city situated on the Bremer River in South East Queensland, Australia...
, the University of Queensland
University of Queensland
The University of Queensland, also known as UQ, is a public university located in state of Queensland, Australia. Founded in 1909, it is the oldest and largest university in Queensland and the fifth oldest in the nation...
, St. Andrew's College, Sydney, University of Sydney
University of Sydney
The University of Sydney is a public university located in Sydney, New South Wales. The main campus spreads across the suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington on the southwestern outskirts of the Sydney CBD. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and Oceania...
and University College, London, before taking a position as head of the newly established department of anatomy
Anatomy
Anatomy is a branch of biology and medicine that is the consideration of the structure of living things. It is a general term that includes human anatomy, animal anatomy , and plant anatomy...
at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
in 1922.
Career
In 1924, Dart discovered the first fossil ever found of Australopithecus africanusAustralopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus was an early hominid, an australopithecine, who lived between 2–3 million years ago in the Pliocene. In common with the older Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus was slenderly built, or gracile, and was thought to have been a direct ancestor of modern humans. Fossil...
, an extinct
Extinction
In biology and ecology, extinction is the end of an organism or of a group of organisms , normally a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and recover may have been lost before this point...
hominid closely related to humans, at Taung in North South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
, in the province Northwest. However, because he was an Australian, and not a part of the scientific establishment, and because he found the fossil in Africa, and not Europe or Asia, where the establishment looked to for man's origins, his findings were initially dismissed.
Dart's closest ally was Robert Broom
Robert Broom
Professor Robert Broom was a Scottish South African doctor and paleontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University of Glasgow...
whose discoveries of further Australopithecine
Australopithecine
The term australopithecine refers generally to any species in the related genera Australopithecus or Paranthropus. These species occurred in the Plio-Pleistocene era, and were bipedal and dentally similar to humans, but with a brain size not much larger than modern apes, lacking the...
s (as well as Wilfrid Le Gros Clark
Wilfrid Le Gros Clark
Sir Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark was a British anatomist surgeon, primatologist and palaeoanthropologist, today best remembered for his contribution to the study of human evolution....
's support) eventually vindicated Dart. So much so that in 1947, Sir Arthur Keith said "...Dart was right, and I was wrong." Keith made this statement referring to his dismissal and skepticism Dart's analysis of the 'Taung child' as an early human ancestor; Keith thought that it was more likely to be an ape, yet later research by Broom confirmed Dart's theories.
Not all of Dart's ideas are accepted today. His assertion that gazelle
Gazelle
A gazelle is any of many antelope species in the genus Gazella, or formerly considered to belong to it. Six species are included in two genera, Eudorcas and Nanger, which were formerly considered subgenera...
long-bones found in association with Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus africanus was an early hominid, an australopithecine, who lived between 2–3 million years ago in the Pliocene. In common with the older Australopithecus afarensis, A. africanus was slenderly built, or gracile, and was thought to have been a direct ancestor of modern humans. Fossil...
were used as tool
Tool
A tool is a device that can be used to produce an item or achieve a task, but that is not consumed in the process. Informally the word is also used to describe a procedure or process with a specific purpose. Tools that are used in particular fields or activities may have different designations such...
s is unproven and largely dismissed. Dart also originated the killer ape theory
Killer ape theory
The killer ape theory or killer ape hypothesis is the theory that war and interpersonal aggression was the driving force behind human evolution...
. Although some other anthropologists, notably Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey
Robert Ardrey was an American playwright and screenwriter who returned to his academic training in anthropology and the behavioral sciences in the 1950s....
, defended and further developed the theory, it is still widely questioned.
Legacy
The Institute for the Study of Man in Africa was established in 1956 at Witwatersrand in his honor.In his position as director of the School of Anatomy at University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg
Johannesburg
Johannesburg also known as Jozi, Jo'burg or Egoli, is the largest city in South Africa, by population. Johannesburg is the provincial capital of Gauteng, the wealthiest province in South Africa, having the largest economy of any metropolitan region in Sub-Saharan Africa...
, until 1958. There he worked with Phillip Tobias, who continues his work in the study of the Cradle of Humankind
Cradle of Humankind
The Cradle of Humankind is a World Heritage Site first named by UNESCO in 1999, about 50 kilometres northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Gauteng province. This site currently occupies ; it contains a complex of limestone caves, including the Sterkfontein Caves, where the 2.3-million...
and other paleoanthropological
Paleoanthropology
Paleoanthropology, which combines the disciplines of paleontology and physical anthropology, is the study of ancient humans as found in fossil hominid evidence such as petrifacted bones and footprints.-19th century:...
sites. In 1959, an autobiographical account of Dart's discoveries, Adventures with the Missing Link, was published (with Dennis Craig as co-author). In the book he acknowledges the crucial role played by his first female student and Demonstrator, Josephine Salmons. She brought to his attention the existence of a fossilised baboon skull at the house of Mr E.G. Izod, director of the Northern Lime Company and proprietor of a quarry in Taung. The skull was kept as an ornament on the mantlepiece above the fireplace at his home. In bringing the skull to show Prof. Raymond Dart, she set in motion a chain of events that led to the discovery of the 'Child skull of Taung' She later became wife of Prof. Cecil Jackson, Professor of Anatomy at Onderstepoort Veterinary Institute, University of Pretoria
University of Pretoria
The University of Pretoria is a multi campus public research university located in Pretoria, the administrative and de facto capital of South Africa...
.
At the age of 73, Dart began dividing his time between South Africa and The Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential
The Institutes for The Achievement of Human Potential
The Institutes for The Achievement of Human Potential is a non-profit organization providing teaching programs and literature which it promotes as improving the health and neurological development of normal children and of children who have sustained a brain injury.Although the institute's programs...
(IAHP), an organization founded by Glenn Doman. Dart spent much of the next twenty years working with the IAHP, an organization that treats brain injured children.
See also
- HominidaeHominidaeThe Hominidae or include them .), as the term is used here, form a taxonomic family, including four extant genera: chimpanzees , gorillas , humans , and orangutans ....
- Prehistoric warfarePrehistoric warfarePrehistoric warfare is war conducted in the era before writing, and before the establishments of large social entities like states. Historical warfare sets in with the standing armies of Bronze Age Sumer, but prehistoric warfare may be studied in some societies at much earlier dates.When humans...
- Human evolutionHuman evolutionHuman evolution refers to the evolutionary history of the genus Homo, including the emergence of Homo sapiens as a distinct species and as a unique category of hominids and mammals...
- List of fossil sites (with link directory)
- List of hominina fossils (with images)
External links
- http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/284158_brain.htmlEssay by C.K. BrainCharles Kimberlin BrainCharles Kimberlin Brain , born in Southern Rhodesia in 1931, is an eminent South African paleontologist who has studied and taught African cave taphonomy for more than fifty years.-Biography:From 1965 to 1991, Dr...
, "Raymond Dart and our African origins," accompanying the reprint of Raymond Dart's 1925 Nature article in A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World, Laura Garwin and Tim Lincoln, eds.] - Biography of Raymond Dart on Minnesota State University, MankatoMinnesota State University, MankatoMinnesota State University, Mankato is a public four-year university located in Mankato, Minnesota, a community of 53,000 located southwest of Minneapolis-St. Paul. As of Fall 2011, the student body is the third-largest in the state of Minnesota with over 15,000 students...
EMuseum website - Biography of Raymond Dart in the TalkOrigins ArchiveTalkOrigins ArchiveThe TalkOrigins Archive is a website that presents mainstream science perspectives on the antievolution claims of young-earth, old-earth, and "intelligent design" creationists...
. - Raymond Dart: Biography in Famous Biologists at Macroevolution.net.