While the grand majority of scientists kept the idea that the large brain led the way, they disagreed with Darwin that Africa was the birthplace of the earliest hominid species. For one, Africa was on the wrong side of the equator, they thought, and the people living there were "savages." Or so everyone believed at the time. First, they claimed that Europe held the remains of the earliest human ancestor, or in other words, the "missing link": a creature half way bewteen Homo sapiens and apes. However, after turning up several Neanderthal skeletons--who were then considered to be descendant-less offshoots--and some Cro-Magnons--who were actually anatomically modern humans--Europe became a dead-end for early hominid fossil hunters. Indeed, the Neanderthals were long misrepresented as "the beast" that "walked with bent knees and a shambling gait, his head slung forward on a squat neck, his big toe splayed out chimpanzee-like to the side."
Anyway, after Europe was canceled out as a possible "cradle of humankind" the thought appeared that Asia held the oldest hominid remains, not Europe. It was into this atmosphere that a young anatomist named Eugène Dubois ventured out into the island of Java in the search for the "missing link." Between the years 1891 and 1894, Dubois discovered a flattish skull cap and humanlike femur. Dubois named his fossils Pithecanthropus erectus. The genus name Pithecanthropus was invented by Ernst Haeckel, whom Dubois admired greatly; and erectus meant "upright" or "erect," in light of the human-like femur. Nonetheless, the scientific community refused to accept his claims, due to the scanty amount of evidence Dubois presented. However, he was eventually proven to be right by similar discoveries in other parts of the world.
Dubois was followed by many other paleoanthropologists, who chose, however, not to search in the Southeast Asian islands, but in Mongolia. But they were always without success. For example, in the 1920s, several prominent American paleontologists--influenced by the Europeans--set up a fossil-hunting expedition to the deserts of Mongolia. Although they found many excellently-preserved extinct mammals of the Ice Age, the site failed to turn up any hominid remains.
After seeing all the rest of the world receive such publicity, Europe must have wanted a "missing link" of its own to boast. And they finally got one, although it was artificially manufactured rather than naturally preserved. It was the infamous Piltdown skull, found in the vicinity of the Barkham Manor, which was sandwiched between London and the English Channel. Its first pieces discovered in 1908, the skull soon found its way into the international spotlight. The very embarrassing end came when it was revealed, in 1953, that the skull was a cunning forgery. It dealt a great blow to the respectability of the English scientific community, and turned paleoanthropologists' previous theories upside down.
During the years of Piltdown's reign, there lurked a tiny fossil cranium of a six-year-old ape-man. It was discovered by Raymond Dart, professor at the University of Witwatersrand at Johannesburg, Australia. This famous, yet somewhat controversial, fossil was the Taung skull. It was also rejected by scientists at first. Dart was finally vindicated when, excavating in South African caves, Robert Broom, a paleontologist of world-class standing, found many of adult australopithecines. So, the rest of the world accepted Dart's find. It was a narrative with a happy ending.
Following Raymond Dart's discovery, there was another significant vindication of another scientist: Eugène Dubois. Subsequent to Davidson Black's discovery of a tooth, half of a lower jaw, and skulls II and III, he named the new species Sinanthropus pekinensis, or "Peking Man." Succeeded by German anatomist Franz Weidenreich (due to Black's death in 1934), finds were made in 1936 of Skulls X, XI, and XII. The evidence was so powerful that the scientific community accepted pithecanthropus as genuine.
Then, came the little stumble in Dart's career. Influenced by World War I and II--both very bloody--Dart theorized that this born instinct to kill with a weapon could be traced to the very dawn of humankind: the australopithecines. Dart stated: "Man's predecessors differed from living apes in being confirmed killers; carnivorous creatures, that seized living quarries by violence, battered them to death, tore apart their broken bodies, dismembered them limb from limb, slaking their ravenous thirst with the hot blood of victims and greedily devouring livid writhing flesh." But an examination of evidence supporting this theory reveals that the perforations in the juvenile skull are the tooth marks of a leopard. And our early hominids could not have whacked the baboons since they are so vigilant and speedy that it would have been impossible to outrun them.
While so much attention was being given to South African, no one had yet the intention to explore East Africa … except for one couple: the Leakeys, who can be considered to be the most famous and devoted paleoanthropologist in history. His many discoveries include Proconsul, an extinct ape; the Oldowan tool industry, used by Homo habilis and rudolfensis; and the Laetoli footprints, made by ancient hominids walking on carbonatite ash 3.7 million years ago.
After Louis Leakey's death in 1972, he was succeeded by his son, Richard, a paleontologist of equal standing and prominence as his father. Some of his finds include KNM-ER 406 (a museum identification code that translates to Kenya National Museum, East Rudolf, specimen #406), KNM-ER 407, KNM-ER 732, KNM-ER 1470, KNM-ER 992, KNM-ER 1805, KNM-ER 1813, KNM-ER 3733, KNM-ER 3883, and many others. In 1969, a datable volcanic tuff was discovered called the KBS tuff, and was dated by the potassium-argon method at 2.6 million years ago. However, this date was debunked by the end of the 1970s, and caused quite a taboo among the Leakey camps.
During the years of the Leakeys' success was also the prosperity of a fossil whose possessor was named Ramapithecus. The evidence was mainly jaws and teeth; but surprisingly, from such meager data, Simons and David Pilbeam were able to to infer that it was a "small-brained but upright and tool-using human precursor."(p.120) Over the years, more and more fragments of Ramapithecus were found but they were just that: fragments. Then came the charge from Sarich and Wilson in 1971 that the hominid line could not have diverged more than 5 million years ago, based on molecular evidence. Finally, by the mid-1980s, Ramapithecus had collapsed, and along with it, the hypothesis that the human and ape line diverged 15 million years ago.
Then came Donald Johanson. In 1973, he discovered a knee joint at Hadar in Ethiopia. The next year, an even more exciting specimen was found: Lucy, an Australopithecus afarensis that was 40% complete. But his luck did not run out yet, for in 1975, the "First Familiy" was found. The fossils led Johanson to believe that afarensis was the true ancestor of Homo while africanus diverged on the hand to produce Australopithecus robustus. However, he was quickly countered by Philip Tobias and the africanus defenders. The case is not settled yet, and the two sides continue to clash.
Leakey's return to the field was marked by the discovery of the Nariokotome skeleton, the most complete skeleton ever of Homo erectus (or Homo ergaster) and at that, the most complete of fossil hominid older than 100,000 years ago. Its finder was Kamoya Kimeu, a veteran fossil hunter of great experience. At a swapping 5 ft. 4 in. and considering the fact that it died at about 11 years of age, it falsified the idea that Homo erectus was short, stout and muscular. However, if the Nariokotome boy had grown to adulthood, he would have reached 198 meters in height! That's 18 cm taller than the human male average! The general pattern that we see in human evolution is an increase in height. Thus, to accept the Nariokotome skeleton as a normal Homo erectus would be to conclude that there was a sudden "growth spurt" between H. habilis and H. erectus, but then, our ancestors suddenly became shorter. This scenario would be very odd, so personally, I believe that it is just an abnormally tall boy.
Recently, a new figure named Noel T. Boaz launched an expedition to northern Libya, where he believes the earliest hominids to have arisen. Others, like Lee Berger, believe them to have evolved in South Africa. Whatever it is, new fossil finds will untie the knots and provide new insights into the search for human origins.
