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Raymond Dart (seated center) with his anatomy class, 1924. Josephine Salmons is seated to his left. Courtesy of the Dart Papers, University of Witwatersrand Archives
Source publication
The fossilized primate skull known as the Taungs Baby, discovered in South Africa, was put forward in 1925 as a controversial ‘missing link’ between humans and apes. This essay examines the controversy generated by the fossil, with a focus on practice and the circulation of material objects. Viewing the Taungs story from this perspective provides a...
Context in source publication
Context 1
... bringing in a baboon skull she had spotted mounted on a mantelpiece of a friend's house (Dart 1925). Intrigued by the baboon, Dart learned it had been found at the Buxton quarry near Taungs and he began working with a geologist at the University, Robert Young, to ensure that any interesting fossils discovered in the future would be set aside (Fig. ...
Similar publications
Recent paleoanthropological surveys conducted in the Lower Awash basin (Afar Rift) have led to the discovery of new localities. Here we announce and describe the latest addition to the roster of hominid-bearing research areas in this basin. Located east of the modern Awash River and west of the Megenta mountain ridge, localities in the new research...
Citations
The announcement of a fossilized child's skull discovered in a quarry in 1924 sub‐Saharan Africa might not have seemed destined to be a classic paper. This contribution focuses on anatomist Raymond Dart's 1925 paper in which he designated the Taungs skull the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus. We combine an account of Dart's training and experience, with a telling of the fossil's discovery, analysis, the initial response of a mostly skeptical community, and a review of subsequent discoveries that consolidated the case Dart made for a hitherto unknown human close relative. Dart's paper presented evidence that confirmed the prescience of Charles Darwin's prediction that Africa was the birthplace of modern humans. The Taungs skull's unique mix of great ape and human attributes eventually led to a paradigm shift in our understanding of human evolution.
Even as paleoanthropology becomes increasingly sophisticated in revealing both the broad contours and the details of the deep evolutionary history of Homo sapiens, it continues to be informed by lingering pre-evolutionary residues. Specifically, the goal of prior research was to demonstrate that the influence of the ancient Scala Naturae as an organizing principle significantly contributed to the scientific community's delayed acceptance of Australopithecus (sensu lato) as a plesiomorphic member of the Hominidae. The present study extends this research through a selective examination of non-primary source material reporting on significant early hominid discoveries over the last century, beginning with Australopithecus africanus (1925) and ending with Ardipithecus ramidus (1995/2009). It is argued that these accessible sources reify to varying degrees the perception among the non-expert public that human beings are an inevitable culmination of the evolutionary process. This culturally transmitted schema of human exceptionalism continues to impact other life on Earth in profound ways, in some cases with calamitous results.
Science is a very special form of storytelling, one in which the stories told have to be testable against empirical observation. But the world is a complicated place; and, to provide a coherent account of it, scientists often find themselves obliged to join up their observable dots using untestable or as-yet-untested lines. This is a necessary part of constructing many valuable and predictive scientific scenarios; and it is perfectly good procedure as long as the assumptions involved are fully compatible with what is known and testable. But it also means that, in formulating their ideas about how the world works (or worked), scientists must remain keenly aware not only of what is and is not assumption in those complex ideas, but of how untested elements may color their beliefs. The contributions to this volume cover many interesting examples of how assumptions have affected ideas in diverse areas of the paleosciences, both practical and theoretical, and they serve together as a salutary reminder that vigilance and a willingness to rethink are always in order.
