Raymond Dart

Raymond Arthur Dart is a Anthropologue Australian born the February 4th 1893 and dead the November 22nd 1988. In 1924 in South Africa, he discovered and described the “child of Taung”, the first fossil of Australopithèque.

Course

Born with, Queensland in Australia, it studies with, the Université of Queensland, the University off Sydney and the University College of London. In 1922, it obtains the position of director of the new department of anatomy of to Johannesburg, South Africa.

Wire of farmer, it Marie twice and has two children.

Discovered of the “child of Taung”

In 1924, the owner of a limestone quarry of sends a fossiliferous parcel of rocks to Dart. By examining the rocks in question, Dart discovers a moulding endocrânien then a facial cranium fragment which adapts to it. The fossil is that of a young primate and becomes known like the “child of Taung”. Dart publishes its description and creates new a kind and a news Espèce: Australopithecus africanus , the monkey of the South of Africa. Dart regards the fossil as a representative of the “Missing link” between the large monkeys and the human ones, because of its relatively small brain, of its teeth evoking that of human modern and probable biped station .

The discovery and its author were highly criticized initially by the majority of the eminent anthropologists of then. claimed in particular that the child of Taung was only a youthful Gorille. The young age of the fossil made indeed difficult its interpretation. A African origin of humanity and an appearance of the bipédie former to the development of the volume of the brain not agreeing with the dominant ideas of the time relating to the human evolution, Dart and the child of Taung were the attack object many.

Recognition and divergence

Closest combined to Dart Wilfrid Large Clark and Robert Broom were , which discovered new specimens of Australopithecus. It is not that in 1947 qu ' Arthur Keith recognized that Dart was right.

All the ideas of R. Dart however are not accepted today. The osteodontokeratic industry (in bone, tooth and horn) which it had believed to identify in partnership with the bones of Australopithecus is largely rejected. Dart is also at the origin of the “theory of the monkey killer”; even if certain anthropologists such as defended and developed, it is always massively called in question.

The heritage of R. Dart

Dart preserved its position of director of the school of anatomy at the University of Witwatersrand until 1958. It worked there in collaboration with which continued its research and contributed to the study of the , a whole of fossiliferous sites of the Gauteng including Swartkrans and Sterkfontein.

In 1959 is appeared an autobiographical account of its discoveries entitled Aventures with the missing link . The Institut for the study of the Man in Africa was created in its honor with Witwatersrand.

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