daka_cranium  
HESL • CSUEB Anthropology • Office hours  
line decor
  
line decor

 


 
 
 

link date name event
info (350) Classical and Hellenistic Greece Did the Greeks know about fossils?
______________________________
info ~(340) Aristotle Introduces ideas of classification of animals, genus and species, and embryology
______________________________
info 220 China Woodblock priniting
______________________________
info 1000 Abu Rayhan Biruni Discusses seashell fossils as evidence for geological change. In 1030, Biruni discussed the Indian heliocentric theories of Aryabhata, Brahmagupta and Varahamihira in his Indica. Biruni noted that the question of heliocentricity was a philosophical rather than a mathematical problem.
______________________________
info 1027 Avicenna (Abū Alī Sīnā) Outlined the principle of superposition while discussing the origins of mountains in The Book of Healing ( Al-Shefa).
______________________________
info 1439 Johann Gutenberg Movable type Printing Press
______________________________
info 1455 numerous printing presses 180 Gutenberg Bibles printed. 48 of these remain today. In 1480 the Low German Bible appeared at Cologne. Ninety-eight distinct and full editions(with hundreds of printed volumes in each edition) appeared prior to 1500.
______________________________
info 1514 Nicolaus Copernicus Distributed Commentariolus to associates. This short, hand-written text outlined a heliocentric hypothesis. In 1543 hes publishes De revolutionibus orbium coelestium his monographic outline of his heliocentric theory based on planetary movements. Numerous volumes are published.
______________________________
info 1517 Martin Luther Stirs protests against Roman Catholic Church. Luther's theology challenged the authority of the papacy by holding that the Bible is the only infallible source of religious authority and that all baptized Christians under Jesus are a universal priesthood.
______________________________
info 1519 Hernan Cortes, Montezuma Cortes conquers Aztecs
______________________________
info 1543 Andreas Vesalius Wrote De humani corporis fabrica libri septem (On the fabric of the human body in seven books) based on the quasi-legal, yet increasingly common practice of human cadaver dissection. Roman law forbade dissection and autopsy of the human body,[3] so physicians such as Galen were unable to work on cadavers. Galen for example dissected the Barbary Macaque and other primates, assuming their anatomy was basically the same as that of humans. Human dissections were also conducted by the Arabian physician Ibn Zuhr (Avenzoar) (1091-1161) in al-Andalus,[11] followed by several other Arabian physicians: Saladin's physician Ibn Jumay in the 12th century, Abd-el-latif in Egypt circa 1200,[12] and Ibn al-Nafis in Syria circa 1242.
______________________________
info 1551 Conrad Gesner Writes Historiae animalium a volume that attempts to catalog all animals and explain their natural history. This works contains the first known illustrations of fossils.
______________________________
info 1589 William Lee The stocking frame, a mechanical knitting machine, one of the forerunners of the industrial revolution.
______________________________
info 1608 Hans Lippershey, Zacharias Janssen, Jacob Metius Refracting telescope invented in the Netherlands.
______________________________
info 1610 Galileo Galilei Galileo published an account of his high-tech telescope observations of the moons of Jupiter, using this observation to argue in favor of the sun-centered, Copernican theory of the universe against the dominant earth-centered Ptolemaic and Aristotelian theories.
______________________________
info 1630 René Descartes published Le Monde (The World, 1630) and L'Homme (Man, 1633)"Cartesian dualism", suggested that the body could be considered a machine entirely separate from the spiritual world. Quote "I think, therefore I am."
______________________________
info 1651 Thomas Hobbes Proposes in Leviathan that reality is solely mechanical, and could be explained with entirely secular means.
______________________________
info 1669 Steno, Nicolai (Niels Stensen) De Solido intra Solidum naturaliter Contento Dissertationis Prodromus. (Prodrome to a Dissertation concerning a Solid Naturally Enclosed within a Solid). 1669: Fossils represent animals once alive; principles of stratigraphy with superposition and original horizontality
______________________________
info 1686 John Ray Defined concept of 'species' in first edition of classification of plants titled Historia Plantarum. Ray rejected the system of dichotomous division by which species were classified according to a pre-conceived, either/or type system, and instead classified plants according to similarities and differences that emerged from observation. Thus he advanced scientific empiricism against the deductive rationalism of the scholastics. He coined the term species.
______________________________
info 1699 Edward Tyson Book: Orang Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris, Or The Anatomy of a Pygmie Compared with that of a Monkey, and Ape, and a Man. Dissection of chimpanzee and detailed discussion of profound similarity to humans. Very early, if not the earliest, use of the missing link concept: "I take him to be wholly a Brute, tho' in the formation of the Body, and in the Sensitive or Brutal Soul, it may be, more resembling a Man, than any other Animal; so that in this Chain of the Creation, as an intermediate Link between an Ape and a Man, I would place our Pygmie."
______________________________
info 1708 Johann Jakob Scheuchzer Lake Constance skeleton found, Johann Jakob Scheuchzer described the fossil in 1726 in his Lithographia Helvetica as Homo diluvii testis (man who has witnessed the flood). Cuvier showed it to be a fossil salamander in 1812.
______________________________
info 1712 Thomas Newcomen Thomas Newcomen builds first commercially successful steam engine. It was able to keep deep coal mines clear of water, and the first significant power source other than wind and water.
______________________________
info 1735 Carl von Linnae (Carolus Linnaeus) Systema Naturae; link is to the 12th edition
______________________________
info 1759 Giovanni Arduino Names geological strata: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary
______________________________
info 1766 Buffon Book: Nomenclature of the Apes. Compares humans and apes. Classifies all humans as one species and differentiates them from apes. Buffon suggested that species mightchange with environment. His books were burned in France for his suggestion that the earth was 75,000 years old.
______________________________
info 1775 Johann Friedrich Blumenbach Agrees with Buffon that all humans are the same species; diversity is a result of climate, diet, mode of life
______________________________
info 1788 James Hutton "no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end;" Uniformitarianism
______________________________
info 1790 John Frere Finds deeply buried handaxes from Hoxne, Suffolk, England associated with extinct animals in 1790. "...weapons of war, fabricated by a people who had not the use of metals... The situation in which these weapons were found may tempt us to refer them to a very remote period indeed, even beyond that of the present world..." letter published by the Society of Antiquaries -1800
______________________________
info 1791 William Smith Starts geological survey work in Sommerset England that would lead to his "Principal of Faunal Succession
______________________________
info 1794 James Hutton Proposes Natural Selection in Investigation of the Principles of Knowledge. "...if an organised body is not in the situation and circumstances best adapted to its sustenance and propagation, then, in conceiving an indefinite variety among the individuals of that species, we must be assured, that, on the one hand, those which depart most from the best adapted constitution, will be the most liable to perish, while, on the other hand, those organised bodies, which most approach to the best constitution for the present circumstances, will be best adapted to continue, in preserving themselves and multiplying the individuals of their race."
______________________________
info 1798 Thomas Malthus First edition of An Essay on the Principle of Population
______________________________
info 1802 Jean-Baptiste Lamarck Publishes Recherches sur l'Organisation des Corps Vivants where he lays out the idea of evolution by inheritance of acquired characteristics.
______________________________
info 1812 Cuvier Wrote "There are no human fossil bones" when dismissing the Lake Constance skeleton in Recherches sur les ossemens fossiles des quadrupèdes [Research on the Fossil Bones of Quadrupeds]
______________________________
info 1825 Nicéphore Niépce First photographs.
______________________________
info 1829 Phillipe-Charles Schmerling Engis Neanderthal cranium found at Engis, Liege, Belgium in sediments containing bones of extinct animals. Fossil not recognized for its importance until 1836.
______________________________
info 1830 Lyell Principals of geology - Published in 3 volumes from 1830-1833. Very detailed documentation of sedimentology was a major milestone in the documentation of uniformitarianism.
______________________________
info 1839 Samuel Morton Samuel Morton publishes Crania Americana, one of the founding tomes of "scientific" racism
______________________________
info 1840 Louis Agassiz A student of Cuvier, views Ice Age as a single event. Agassiz integrated observations of glaciar marks to formulate his theory that a great Ice Age had once gripped the Earth, and published his theory in Étude sur les glaciers in 1840. Agassiz was correct in the existence of an ice age, but wrong about there being only one.
______________________________
info 1841 Oracle of Reason Engraving of 'Fossil Man' in Figure 9 of the first installment of 'The Theory of Regular Gradation.' This was one of many early discussions of evolution that lacked an adequate causal mechanism.
______________________________
info 1844 Robert Chambers Publishes Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. "The book, as far as I am aware, is the first attempt to connect the natural sciences in a history of creation."
______________________________
info 1847 Thomas Staughton Savage Gorillas described from specimens collected in Liberia
______________________________
info 1848 Clive Finlayson Found by a Lieutenant Flint at Forbes Quarry, Gibralter neanderthal cranium first mentioned; forgotten in Gibralter Scientific Society until discovery of cranium in Neander Valley, Germany (Neandertal)
______________________________
info 1849 Jacques Boucher de Crèvecœur de Perthes Boucher de Perthes publishes his discovery of stone tools. About the year 1830 he had found, in the gravels of the Somme valley, primitive tools with extinct animals in the gravels of Menchecourt. In 1847 he commenced the issue of his monumental three volume work, Antiquites Celtiques Et Antediluviennes, a work in which he was the first to establish the existence of man in the Pleistocene or early Quaternary period.
______________________________
info 1856 Johann Carl Fuhlrott In 1856, workers in a lime quarry at Feldhoffer Cave in a canyon called Neanderthal showed him bones they had found in a cave and thought to belong to a bear. Fuhlrott identified them as human and thought them to be very old. Bonn University professor Shaaffhausen announced them as a "barbarian race of European natives."
______________________________
info 1859 Charles Darwin Publishes Origin of Species, the book that clearly articulates his theory of natural selection and its potential to generate new species through the divergence of two parts of a parent species. Darwin was prompted by the similar discovery and articulation of this phenomenon by Alfred Russel Wallace.
______________________________
info 1859 Pierre-Paul Broca Founded the Société d’Anthropologie, Paris (Anthropological Society of Paris).
______________________________
info 1860 Ernst Heinrich Haeckel Frequently lectured about the Asian origin of hominids in the decades following the publication of the Origin of Species. This incorrect idea, based on the mistaken idea that orangutans were the closest living relatives of humans, influenced Eugene Dubois.
______________________________
info 1862 Lord Kelvin (William Thompson) Published calculations that fixed the age of Earth at between 20 million and 400 million years. He assumed that Earth had been created as a completely molten ball of rock, and determined the amount of time it took for the ball to cool to its present temperature. His calculations did not account for the ongoing heat source in the form of radioactive decay, which was unknown at the time. Geologists had trouble accepting such a short age for Earth. Biologists could accept that Earth might have a finite age, but even 100 million years seemed much too short to be plausible. Charles Darwin, who had studied Lyell's work, had proposed his theory of the evolution of organisms by natural selection, a process whose combination of random heritable variation and cumulative selection implies great expanses of time. (Geneticists have subsequently measured the rate of genetic divergence of species, using the molecular clock, to date the last universal ancestor of all living organisms no later than 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago). In a lecture in 1869, Darwin's great advocate, Thomas H. Huxley, attacked Thomson's calculations, suggesting they appeared precise in themselves but were based on faulty assumptions. The German physicist Hermann von Helmholtz (in 1856) and the Canadian astronomer Simon Newcomb (in 1892) contributed their own calculations of 22 and 18 million years respectively to the debate: they independently calculated the amount of time it would take for the Sun to condense down to its current diameter and brightness from the nebula of gas and dust from which it was born. Their values were consistent with Thomson's calculations. However, they assumed that the Sun was only glowing from the heat of its gravitational contraction. The process of solar nuclear fusion was not yet known to science. Other scientists backed up Thomson's figures as well. Charles Darwin's son, the astronomer George H. Darwin of the University of Cambridge, proposed that Earth and Moon had broken apart in their early days when they were both molten. He calculated the amount of time it would have taken for tidal friction to give Earth its current 24-hour day. His value of 56 million years added additional evidence that Thomson was on the right track. The last estimate Thomson gave, in 1897, was: "that it was more than 20 and less than 40 million year old, and probably much nearer 20 than 40". Dalrymple, G. 1994. The Age of the Earth. Stanford University Press
______________________________
info 1863 Charles Lyell Publishes The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man.
______________________________
info 1863 Thomas Henry Huxley Publishes Man's Place in Nature. Later quotes: "Truth is great, certainly, but, considering her greatness, it is curious what a long time she is apt to take about prevailing. When, towards the end of 1862, I had finished writing Man's Place in Nature, I could say with a good conscience, that my conclusions had not been formed hastily or enunciated crudely."
______________________________
info 1864 William King Names Homo neanderthalensis.
______________________________
info 1864 Homo neanderthalensis Species named.
______________________________
info 1864 George Busk Exhibited Gibralter cranium in England in September at the British Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Bath. At the meeting, the eminent scientist, Hugh Falconer recognized the fossil as 'a very low type of humanity - very low and savage, and of extreme antiquity'.
______________________________
info 1866 J. D. Whitney Calveras cranium found. Later turned out to be a hoax.
______________________________
info 1866 Edouart Dupont la Naulette mandible discovered in Belgium. The association of the fossils with extinct animal species allowed him to demonstrate the antiquity of the fossil attributed to Neandertals.
______________________________
info 1868 Louis Lartet Cro Magnon specimens found near Les Eyzies, France. Modern Humans with fossil fauna
______________________________
info 1871 Charles Darwin Publishes The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex. Wikipedia
______________________________
info 1871 Rudolf Virchow An extremely prominent anti-evolution anatomist of the late 1800's in Germany, Virchow pronounced Neanderthal specimens to be a modern Homo sapiens, whose deformations were caused by rickets and arthritis. Virchow thought the flattened skull was the result of cranial trauma. Virchow's views were widely accepted until 1886, when two more Neanderthal skeletons were discovered in a cave in the Spy region of Belgium. While Virchow claimed that these too were the remains of diseased modern humans, other scientists regarded such a coincidence as unlikely
______________________________
info 1886 Marcel de Puydt, Max Lohest, Julien Fraipont Neanderthal fossils found at the Spy caves. Spy 1 Estimated age: 60,000 years Location: Belgium Discovered at the Grotto of Spy (pronounced "spee") d'Orneau in Belgium, this find consisted of two nearly complete skeletons and partial crania. The crania show heavy brow ridges very different from anatomically modern humans. Fossil analysis established that the individuals were very old when they died, largely discrediting the previously held idea that the Neanderthal physique was a pathological condition.
______________________________
info 1887 Louis Laurent Gabriel de Mortillet Mousterian tradition named and described.
______________________________
info 1888 Robert Elliott Pleistocene modern man at Galley Hill discovered. "At a time when so much attention is being directed to the implements made by Palæolithic Man, the discovery of a human skeleton in the Palæolithic gravels of this country cannot but awaken much interest." No one paid much attention to it until Keith in the early 20th Century.
______________________________
info 1888 Fouilles Hardy, Féaux Chancelade modern human remains found. The "Man of Chancelade" is the skeleton of an anatomically modern human found in 1888 in the cave to Raymonden Chancelade Dordogne. The age of death was 55 to 65, and the skeleton was buried in a strongly bent position. The skeleton was Pleistocene: 12 000 to 17 000 BC. People at the time argued that it showed that paleolithic Europeans were more like foragers living in the arctic than the modern inhabitants of Europe.
______________________________
info 1890 Eugene Dubois
Very early fossil material from Java. Found 1 year before the discovery of the trinil skullcap.
______________________________
info 1891 Eugene Dubois Trinil femur found.
______________________________
info 1892 Eugene Dubois Anthropopithecus erectus named based on molar and skullcap
______________________________
info 1892 Anthropopithecus erectus species named.
______________________________
info 1893 Eugene Dubois Pithecanthropus a name originally used by Haekel for "ape-like man" or Pithe- canthropi (as opposed to "man-like ape") is applied to Java fossils.
______________________________
info 1895 Eugene Dubois Presents Pithecanthropus erectus in Europe.
______________________________
info 1899 Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger 1899-1905 Kramberger discovers Krapina neanderthals. This further proved the existence of "early humans," in other words that neanderthals were not just pathological modern humans.
______________________________
info 1901 need name First course in Physical anthropology taught at UC Berkeley.
______________________________
info 1901 Rene Verneau Grimaldi Homo sapiens found... Grimaldi became popular as an African-like prehistoric European.
______________________________
info 1901 Theodor Boveri 1901-1905 Experiments lead to the discovery that chromosomes in the nucleus were responsible for passing genetic information. Boveri, T. 1902. On multipolar mitosis as a means of analysis of the cell nucleus. Foundations of Experimental Embryology. New York, Prentice Hall 1964: 74?97.
______________________________
info 1906 Gustav Schwalbe Interprets human evolution as 3 stage unilineal: Pithecanthropus,Neanderthal, and modern humans.
______________________________
info 1906 Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger Krapina monograph published. 1906. Der diluviale Mensch von Krapina in Kroatien. Ein Beitrag zur Paläoanthropologie. Studien über Entwicklungsmechanik des Primatskelettes mit besondrer Berücksichtigung der Anthropologie und Descendenslehre. Herausgegeben von Dr. Otton Walkhoff, Weisbaden, 4to, 1906.
______________________________
info 1906 Ernest Rutherford Geological samples dated to 1.3 billion years, shifting the balance of scientific thought. The conventional widsom, after Lord Kelvin's (and other's) thermodynamic calculations estimated the Earth's age to be between 20 million and 100 million.
I came into the room, which was half dark, and presently spotted Lord Kelvin in the audience and realized that I was in trouble at the last part of my speech dealing with the age of the earth, where my views conflicted with his. To my relief, Kelvin fell fast asleep, but as I came to the important point, I saw the old bird sit up, open an eye, and cock a baleful glance at me! Then a sudden inspiration came, and I said, 'Lord Kelvin had limited the age of the earth, provided no new source was discovered. That prophetic utterance refers to what we are now considering tonight, radium!' Behold! the old boy beamed upon me.
______________________________
info 1907 Otto Schoetensack Mauer mandible discovered by workman workman who gave it to professor Otto SchoetensackHomo heidelbergensis
______________________________
info 1908 Ludwig Pfeiffer Ehringsdorf neanderthals found Needs Wikipedia entry • Pfeiffer, L. 1912 Die Steinzeitliche Technik und ihre Beziehungen zur Gegenwart. Jena: Verlag von Gustaf Fischer.
______________________________
info 1908 Otto Hauser Le Moustier neanderthal found by Swiss archaeologist Otto Hauser in Dordogne.
______________________________
info 1908 A. and J. Bouyssonie, and L. Bardon Discovered neanderthal fossils at La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Interpreted by Marcellin Boule, whose reconstruction of neandertal anatomy based on la Chapelle-aux-Saints material shaped popular perceptions of the Neandertals for over thirty years.
______________________________
info 1908 Homo heidelbergensis species named.
______________________________
info 1909 Otto Hauser Homo sapiens found at Combe Capelle, Dordogne.
______________________________
info 1909 A. Penck, E. Bruckner Glacials named for tributaries of the Danube River in Germany. Based on Relative levels of river terraces separated by weathering and soils. Glacials: WÜRM RISS MINDEL GUNZ
______________________________
info 1909 Luis Capitan, Denis Peyrony Discoverers of La Ferraissie neanderthals: Captita, L. and D. Peyrony. 1909. Duex squelettes humains au milieu de foyers de l'époque moustérienne. Revue de l'Ecole d'Anthropologie de Paris 19:402-9.
______________________________
info 1909 Marcellin Boule 1909-1912 Publishes La Chapelle-aux-Saints neandderthal skeleton. Suggested that neanderthals were beast-like, walked with bent knees, and had a 'shambling' gait, with a head slung forward on a squat neck, with a big toe like a chimp's.
______________________________
info 1911 Arthur Keith Pronounces Galley Hill, Swanscombe, Kent is ancient evidence for Homo sapiens. Keith, who would later be pivotal in the Piltdown hoax, suggested that the galley hill specimens were as old as 170,000 years old and dicounted their neanderthal affinities. Now Swanscombe thought to be around 400k years old (Stringer and Hublin, 1999)
______________________________
info 1911 Marcellin Boule 1911-1913Monographs La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Boule, M (1911) L'homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Ann. Paléontol. 6: 111-172. Links Boule, M (1912a) L'homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Ann. Paléontol. 7: 21-56, 85-192. Links Boule, M (1912b) Sur L'Homo neanderthalensis. L'Anthropol. 23: 598-601. Links Boule, M (1912c) L'homme fossile de Piltdown, Sussex (Angleterre). L'Anthropol. 23: 742-744. Links Boule, M (1913) L'homme fossile de La Chapelle-aux-Saints. Ann. Paléontol. 8: 1-70. Links
______________________________
info 1911 Charles Dawson Dawson present at Piltdown
______________________________
info 1911 Wilhelm Kattwinkel German Butterfly collector discovers Olduvai Gorge.
______________________________
info 1912 Arthur Smith Woodward, Charles Dawson Piltdown announced. Arthur Keith announces support for 'pre-sapiens" school, rejecting neanderthals as direct human ancestors. Piltdown seemed to support this view.
______________________________
info 1912 Henri Breuil Acheulean and Upper Paleolithic come defined. Henri Breuil. 1912. Les Subdivisions du Paléolithique supérieur et leur signification. Compte Rendu du Congrès International d'Anthropologie et Archéologie Préhistorique XIVme Sess., Géneève, 1912, pp. 165-238.
______________________________
info 1912 Alfred Wegener Proposes continental Drift
______________________________
info 1913 Hans Reck Works at Olduvai and finds OH-1 modern human.
______________________________
info 1913 Arthur Holmes Publishes Age of the Earth in which he dates earth at 1.5 billion years old.
______________________________
info 1914 WWI German academic school of paleoanthrpology dies.
______________________________
info 1917 Homo capensis species named.
______________________________
info 1918 Roy Chapman Andrews 1918, 1921-25; famous explorer, dinosaur hunter, exemplar of Anglo-Saxon virtues, crack shot, fighter of Mongolian brigands, went looking for fossil hominids in Central Asia leading an AMNH (American Museum of Natural History; AKA the Smithsonian) expedition.
______________________________
info 1918 Ronald Aylmer Fisher Showed how continuous variation measured by the biometricians could be the result of the action of many discrete genetic loci. Fisher, along with J.B.S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright, founded population genetics around this time.
______________________________
info 1921 Arthur Smith Woodward Homo rhodesiensis named for Broken Hill (Kabwe) Cranium. Woodward, Arthur Smith (1921). "A New Cave Man from Rhodesia, South Africa". Nature 108: 371–372. doi:10.1038/108371a0
______________________________
info 1921 Aleš Hrdlička 1921-1924 advocates Neanderthals as direct human ancestors. Hrdlička sums it up in The Neanderthal Phase of Man.
______________________________
info 1921 Johan Gunnar Andersson, Walter W. Granger, Otto Zdansky Excavations begin at Zhoukoudian.
______________________________
info 1921 Homo rhodesiensis species named.
______________________________
info 1924 Raymond Dart Taung child found by quarryman working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Published in 1925 by Raymond Dart in Nature as Australopithecus africanus
______________________________
info 1925 Australopithecus africanus species named.
______________________________
info 1927 Davidson Black Publishes Sinanthropus pekinensis in Nature based on a single tooth.
______________________________
info 1927 Sinanthropus pekinensis species named.
______________________________
info 1928 Davidson Black First cranial remains discovered at Zhoukoudian. Over the next 10 years, before Japanese occupation in 1937, over 200 hominid fossils are recovered under the direction of Yang Zhongjian, Pei Wenzhong, and Jia Lanpo. Lost during WW II, but great casts made by Franz Weidenreich still exist.
______________________________
info 1929 E. J. Wayland Proposes pluvials in eastern Africa that correspond to the 4 European glaciations.
______________________________
info 1929 Ernst Schwarz Names Pan paniscus, the bonobos, as a species separate from the common chimp, Pan troglodytes. Schwarz, E., 1929. Das Vorkommen des Schimpansen auf den linken Kongo-Ufer. Rev. Zool. Bot. Afr. 16, 425-426.
______________________________
info 1929 Dorothy Garrod 1929-1932 Mt. Carmel; Mugharet es-Skhul skeletons found. Garrod, D.A.E. 1934. et-Tabun Diary. Fonds Suzanne Cassou de Saint-Mathurin de la Bibliothèque du Musée des Antiquités Nationales de Saint Germain-en-Laye. Illustrated London News.
______________________________
info 1930 Aleš Hrdlička In Skeletal Remains of Early Man promotes a unilineal hypothesis for human evolution with neanderthals as human ancestors. He also discounts the value of Piltdown.
______________________________
info 1931 Louis Leakey Third East African Expedition: Leakey's first excavations; Olduwan tools found at Olduvai and OH 1 interpreted as their maker.
______________________________
info 1931 W. F. F. Oppennoorth, Ralph von Koenigswald Ngandong (Solo) crania found. These had larger cranial capacities than the trinil or Zhoukoudian specimens.
______________________________
info 1932 Louis Leakey Finds Kanjera Skull parts and Kanam mandible in Kenya Colony, British East Africa.
______________________________
info 1932 Dorothy Garrod Tabun fossils discovered. Thought of as a female neanderthal.
______________________________
info 1932 Camille Arambourg 1932-1933: First Expeditions to Omo Valley, Ethiopia. No hominids found.
______________________________
info 1932 Javanthropus soloensis species named.
______________________________
info 1932 G. Edward Lewis Finds Ramapithecus fossils in Siwaliks. Names Ramapithecus in 1934 and suggests that it might be earliest human ancestor.
______________________________
info 1932 Thomas F. Dreyer Discovers skull at Florisbad, a place where Robert Broom had worked since 1912. Dreyer names it Homo helmei
______________________________
info 1933 Karl Sigrist Steinheim cranium found. Published 1933: Berkhemer, F. 1933. Ein Menshen-Schädel aus diluvialen Schottern von Steinheim a.d. Murr. Anthropol. Anz. 10:318-321
______________________________
info 1933 Louis Leakey Homo kanamensis proposed as distinct species at a meeting. Written proposal of species occurs in the same year. Leakey, L. S. B. 1933 The status of the Kanam mandible and the Kanjera skulls. Man , 33: 200-201.
______________________________
info 1934 Louis Leakey First edition of Adam's Ancestors. Leakey agrees with Keith (in error) about Piltdown and Galley Hill. Leakey would stay convinced of finding some evidence of very early Homo sapiens
______________________________
info 1934 Louis Leaky Fourth East African Expedition, first adult Australopithecus fossil found at Laetoli, but unrecognized until 1979.
______________________________
info 1934 Davidson Black Davidson Black dies. Franz Weidenreich takes over at Zhoukoudian.
______________________________
info 1935 Louis Leakey, Percy George Hamnall Boswell Kanam and Kanjera incident.
______________________________
info 1935 Alvan Theophilus Marston 1935, 1936 (and later in 1955) Swanscombe discovered. Finding Time for the Old Stone Age: A History of Palaeolithic Archaeology and Quaternary Geology in Britain, 1860-1960 (Hardcover) by Anne O'Connor
______________________________
info 1935 Africanthropus helmei species named.
______________________________
info 1935 Homo kanamensis species named.
______________________________
info 1936 Andoyo, G. H. Ralph von Koenigsvald Mojokerto calvaria found somwhere in Java by Andoyo, site itself would be lost and is the subject of ongoing controversy . PDF describing discovery fiasco
______________________________
info 1936 Franz Weidenreich 1936-1943 Monographs of Zhoukoudian "Sinanthropus" published. The Zhoukoudian fossils were lost during WWII, but Weidenreich's descriptions were excellent, and the specimens are still known from precision casts he made.
______________________________
info 1936 Hans Reck, Ludwig Kohl-Larsen Palaeoanthropus njarasensis named for Lake Eyasi cranium found in 1935. Garusi mandible was also found in 1935. KOHL-LARSEN L, RECK H (1936) Erster Ueberblick über die Jung-diluvialen Tier und Menschenfunde. Dr. Kohl-Larsen’s im Nordöstlichen Teil des Njarasa-Grabens (Ostafrika). Geologische Rundschau 27, 401–441. Protsch, R The Kohl-Larsen Eyasi and Garusi hominoid Finds in Tanzania and their relation to Homo erectus in Sigmon, B.A. and Cybulski, J.S. (Ed): Proceedings of a Symposium on Homo erectus in honour of Davidson Black, 1977, Toronto.
______________________________
info 1936 Ralph von Koenigsvald Names Homo modjokertensis citations: Von Koenigswald, G.H.R., 1936. Pithecanthropus erectus: Antwoord dr. Von Koenigswald - Handelsblad, Ochtend editie, 7 mei, 1936 Von Koenigswald, G.H.R., 1936. Erste Mitteilung über einen fossilen Hominiden aus dem Altpleistocän Ostjavas - Proceedings Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, 39: 1000 –1009
______________________________
info 1936 Robert Broom Broom was handed the endocast of a hominid cranium by the quarry manager at Sterfontein. One month later his report on Australopithecus transvaalensis appeared in Nature. Several more Australopithecus fossils were discovered in the next few years.
______________________________
info 1937 WWII World War II comes to Peking (Beijing). Zhoukoudian specimens lost.
______________________________
info 1938 Theodore McCown UC Berkeley's first physical anthropologist. Collaborator of Sir Aurthur Keith at Mt. Carmel.
______________________________
info 1938 Robert Broom Named Plesianthropus transvaalensis for Sterkfontein specimens. Now it is generally synonymized with Australopithecus africanus.
______________________________
info 1938 Robert Broom Named Paranthropus robustus for Kroomdrai material. The Pleistocene Anthropoid Apes of South Africa R. BROOM Nature 142, 377 - 379 (1938) | doi:10.1038/142377a0.
______________________________
info 1938 Paranthropus robustus species named.
______________________________
info 1939 Theodore McCown, Arthur Keith Publish monograph on Skhul and Tabun, interfingered Neanderthal and Homo sapiens sites in Israel. Swansong of "pre-neanderthal" hypothesis. McCown, T., Keith, A., 1939. The Stone Age of Mount Carmel: the Fossil Human Remains from the Levalloiso-Mousterian, Vol. II. Clarendon Press, Oxford.
______________________________
info 1939 Ludwig Kohl-Larsen Expedition to Laetoli reveals maxilla fragment and molar.
______________________________
info 1941 Franz Weidenreich Weidenreich moves to American Museum of Natural History (New York)
______________________________
info 1942 Ernst Mayr Systematics and the Origin of Species published. Mayr emphasized the importance of allopatric speciation, where geographically isolated sub-populations diverge so far that reproductive isolation occurs. Mayr also introduced the biological species concept that defined a species as a group of interbreeding or potentially interbreeding populations that were reproductively isolated from all other populations.
______________________________
info 1942 Louis Leakey Finds Proconsul from Rusinga Island. Originally promoted as the comon ancestor of humans and apes. Genus named by Hopwood in 1933 for fossils he discovered on one of the early 1930's Leakey expeditions.
______________________________
info 1944 George Gaylord Simpson Tempo and Mode in Evolution published. Until Simpson's synthesis, many paleontologists had been skeptical that natural selection was the main component of evolution. In Tempo and Mode, Simpson showed that the trends of linear progression (in for example the evolution of the horse) that earlier paleontologists had used as support for neo-Lamarckism and orthogenesis did not hold up under careful examination. Instead the fossil record was consistent with the irregular, branching, and non-directional pattern predicted by the modern synthesis.
______________________________
info 1947 Robert Broom Pelvis from Sterkfontein. Ms Ples (STS 5) also found.
______________________________
info 1947 Louis Leakey First Pan African Conference. See link for J D Clark transcribed discussion of the conference.
______________________________
info 1948 Raymond Dart names Australopithecus prometheus from Makapansgat hominids found starting 1947. Makapansgat fossils generally considered to be Australopithecus africanus.
______________________________
info 1949 Robert Broom names Paranthropus crassidens from Swartkrans. Now it is considered to be Australopithecus robustus.
______________________________
info 1949 Robert Broom, John T. Robinson Name Telanthropus capensis for Swartkrans fossils. Broom, R. , and Robinson, J. T. , Nature, 164, 322 (1949).
______________________________
info 1949 Telanthropus capensis species named.
______________________________
info 1950 Hans Weinert Weinert publishes Meganthropus africanus for Laetoli specimens. Weinert H (1950) Uber die neuen vor- und fruhmenschenfunde aus Afrika, Java, China und Frankreich. Z. Morphol. Anthropol. 42: 113-148.
______________________________
info 1950 Earnst Mayr Argues effectively for a more sensible, biologically realistic approach to species naming among hominids. Unifies Homo erectus. Mayr, Ernst. 1950. Taxonomic categories in fossil hominids. Cold Spring HarborSymposium on Quantitative Biology 13:109-118.
______________________________
info 1950 Meganthropus africanus species named.
______________________________
info 1951 F. Clark Howell Argues that classic neandethals evolved from progressive 'neanderthals' that had not evolved the extreme cold-adapted features. Argues that the later is the progenitor of Homo sapiens.
______________________________
info 1952 Wilfrid Le Gros Clark Performs dental study that confirms Australopithecus's status as a hominid.
______________________________
info 1953 Ralph Solecki Shanidar neanderthals discovered in Iraq. Eastern boundary of neanderthals extended.
______________________________
info 1953 J. S. Weiner, Kenneth Oakley, Wilfrid Le Gros Clark Piltdown is exposed in July of 1953 at an international congress of paleontologists, under the auspices of the Wenner-Gren Foundation, in London.
______________________________
info 1954 John T. Robinson Publishes Dietary Hypothesis about Australopithecus and "Paranthropus". J. T. Robinson Evolution, Vol. 8, No. 4 (Dec., 1954), pp. 324-334 Published by: Society for the Study of Evolution
______________________________
info 1954 Henri Vallois The Fontéchevade hominins were published in 1958 by Henri Vallois. For Vallois, the two specimens provided the best piece of evidence for the Pre-Sapiens interpretation of hominid evolution.
______________________________
info 1955 Cesare Emiliani Oxegen Isotopes seen as a proxy for glaciation.
______________________________
info 1956 R. F. Flint, Henry Basil Stratton Cook "Pluvial" concept argued against from geological and paleontological perspectives.
______________________________
info 1956 Garniss Hearfield Curtis, Joseph Lipson, Jack F Evernden Potassium argon dating published.
______________________________
info 1959 Zinjanthropus boisei species named.
______________________________
info 1959 Mary, Louis Leakey Discovery and subsequent naming of Zinjanthropus boisei.
______________________________
info 1961 Elwyn Simons Ressurects Ramapithecus. Over the next decade Simons and David Pilbeam are very active in promoting its hominid status. Eventually molecular clocks demonstrating the late divergence of humans and chimps along with fossils of very primitive, yet totally bipedal hominids (Lucy) from 3 Ma sideline Ramapithecus.
______________________________
info 1962 Carleton Coon Publishes The Origin of Races. Race concept untilized extensively.
______________________________
info 1964 Louis Leakey, Philip Tobias, John R. Napier publish Homo habilis. Leakey, L.S.B., Tobias, P.V. & Napier, J.R. 1964. A new species of the genus Homo from Olduvai Gorge. Nature 202(4927): 7-9. [4 Apr 1964]
______________________________
info 1964 C. Loring Brace Brace continued his rebuttals to the 'pre-sapiens' school (Keith, Boule, Leakey) in 1964 in "The Fate of the 'Classic' Neanderthals: a consideration of hominid catastrophism" published in Current Anthropology. Considered Neanderthals to be human ancestors.
______________________________
info 1964 Homo habilis species named
______________________________
info 1967 Camille Arambourg, Yves Coppens edentulous mandible (Omo 18) found west of the Omo River, in 1967. The 2.5 million-year-old mandible was names Paraustralopithecus aethiopicus.
______________________________
info 1967 Allan Wilson, Vincent Sarich Publich date for 4-5 million years ago based on blood albumin and hemglobin divergence.
______________________________
info 1968 Paraustralopithecus aethiopicus species named.
______________________________
info 1972 Richard Leakey announces KNM-ER 1470 at Koobi Fora.
______________________________
info 1974 Donald Johanson, Tom Gray Donald Johanson announces discovery of "Lucy," AL-288-1, from Hadar, Ethiopia
______________________________
info 1975 Homo ergaster species named.
______________________________
info 1976 Mary Leakey, Andrew Hill Laetoli footprints discovered dunging dung fight. Site excavated in 1978 and 1979.
______________________________
info 1978 Donald Johanson, Tim D. White, Yves Coppens publish species Australopithecus afarensis based on material from Laetoli and Hadar
______________________________
info 1978 Australopithecus afarensis species named.
______________________________
info 1984 Kamoya Kimeu KNM-ER 15000 discovered west of Lake Turkana by Kamoya Kimeu, published in 1985. Alan Walker and Richard Leakey (eds.), ed.. Nariokotome Homo Erectus Skeleton. ISBN 0-674-60075-4
______________________________
info 1986 Alan Walker KNM-WT 17000 discovered by Alan Walker, confirms Australopithecus aethiopicus
______________________________
info 1986 Pithecanthropus rudolfensis species named.
______________________________
info 1987 Rebecca Cann, Mark Stoneking, Allan Wilson Mitochondrial eve.
Wilson, A.C., Stoneking, M. and Cann, R.L. (1991) Syst. Zool. 40, 363-365 Maddison, D.R. (1991) Syst. Zool. 40, 355-363.
______________________________
info 1992 Gen Suwa First Middle Awash hominid discovered.
______________________________
info 1993 Juan Luis Arsuaga with colleagues publishes first skulls from the Sima de los Huesos, Atapuerca, Spain
______________________________
info 1994 Jean-Marie Chauvet, Eliette Brunel Deschamps, Christian Hillaire Recent discovery of Upper Paleolithic cave art.
______________________________
info 1994 Tim White, Gen Suwa, Berhane Asfaw Name Australopithecus ramidus, in 1995 revise to be new genus Ardipithecus ramidus.
______________________________
info 1994 Ron J. Clark Discover's "little foot" skeleton at Sterkfontein.
______________________________
info 1994 Australopithecus ramidus species named. Genus Ardipithecus named in follow corr. to Nature in 1995.
______________________________
info 1995 Meave Leakey, Craig Feibel, Ian MacDougall,, Alan Walker Name Australopithecus anamensis.
______________________________
info 1995 Australopithecus anamensis species named.
______________________________
info 1995 Australopithecus bahrelghazali species named.
______________________________
info 1995 L. Gabunia and A. Vekua First Dmanisi hominid mandible published
______________________________
info 1996 Michel Brunet Australopithecus bahrelghazali is a fossil hominin that was discovered in the Bahr el Ghazal valley near Koro Toro, in Chad, in 1993. Published as a new species in 1996.
______________________________
info 1996 Colette Dib*, Sabine Fauré*, Cécile Fizames*, Delphine Samson*, Nathalie Drouot*, Alain Vignal*, Philippe Millasseau*, Sophie Marc*, Jamile Kazan*, Eric Seboun*, Mark Lathrop†, Gabor Gyapay*, Jean Morissette*‡ & Jean Weissenbach Complete human genome published.
______________________________
info 1997 Krings M., Stone A., Schmitz R.W., Krainitzki H., Stoneking M., and Pääbo S First neanderthal DNA study published. Krings M., Stone A., Schmitz R.W., Krainitzki H., Stoneking M., and Pääbo S. (1997): Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans. Cell, 90:19-30.
______________________________
info 1997 Bermúdez de Castro, J. M., J. L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, A. Rosas, I. Martinez and M. Mosquera Homo antecessor named
Bermúdez de Castro, J. M., J. L. Arsuaga, E. Carbonell, A. Rosas, I. Martinez and M. Mosquera. 1997. A Hominid from the Lower Pleistocene of Atapuerca, Spain: Possible Ancestor to Neanderthals and Modern Humans. Science 276:1392-1395.
______________________________
info 1997 Homo antecessor species named.
______________________________
info 1998 Ron J Clark Discovers the rest of littlefoot skeleton in situ
______________________________
info 1999 Berhane Asfaw, Tim White, Owen Lovejoy, Bruce Latimer, Scott Simpson, Gen Suwa Australopithecus garhi: A New Species of Early Hominid from Ethiopia
______________________________
info 1999 Australopithecus garhi species named.
______________________________
info 2000 Martin Picford, Bridgette Senut Publish Orrorin tugenensis a new end-Miocene genus and species based on Lukeino fossils.
______________________________
info 2001 Meave G. Leakey, Fred Spoor, Frank H. Brown, Patrick N. Gathogo, Christopher Kiarie, Louise N. Leakey, and Ian McDougall New hominin genus from eastern Africa purported to show 'diverse' middle Pliocene lineages. Later shown to be too distorted to establish a new taxon.
______________________________
info 2001 Yohannes Haile-Selassie, Names Ardipithecus kadabba for Western Margin, Middle Awash, Ethiopia late Miocene fossils.
Haile-Selassie, Yohannes (2001), “Late Miocene Hominids from the Middle Awash, Ethiopia,” Nature, 412:178-181, July 12.
______________________________
info 2001 Sahelanthropus tchadensis species named
______________________________
info 2001 Ororrin tugenensis species named.
______________________________
info 2001 Ardipithecus ramidus kadabba subpecies name moved to species name in subsequent publication.
______________________________
info 2001 Ardipithecus kadabba species named
______________________________
info 2002 Brunet, Guy, Pilbeam, Mackaye, Likius, Ahounta, Beauvilain, Blondel, Bocherens, Boisserie, De Bonis, Coppens, Dejax, Denys, Duringer, Eisenmann, Fanone, Fronty, Geraads, Lehmann, Lihoreau, Louchart, Mahamat, Merceron, Mouchelin, Otero, Pelaez Campomanes, Ponce de León, Rage, Sapanet, Schuster, Sudr Sahelanthropus tschadensis named
______________________________
info 2002 Homo georgicus species named.
______________________________
info 2003 Tim White, Berhane Asfaw, David Degusta, Henry Gilbert, Gary Richards, Gen Suwa, Clark Howell Circum diaspora Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens idaltu published from Herto, Middle Awash, Ethiopipa.
White, Tim D., Asfaw, B., DeGusta, D., Gilbert, H., Richards, G.D., Suwa, G. and Howell, F.C. (2003). "Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia". Nature 423 (6491): 742–747. doi:10.1038/nature01669.
______________________________
info 2003 Peter Brown, Michael Morwood Homo floresiensis, 18,000 year old hominids from the indonesian island Flores, found. Published in 2004:
Brown, P.; Sutikna, T., Morwood, M. J., Soejono, R. P., Jatmiko, Wayhu Saptomo, E. & Rokus Awe Due (October 27, 2004). "A new small-bodied hominin from the Late Pleistocene of Flores, Indonesia". Nature 431: 1055. doi:10.1038/nature02999
______________________________
info 2003 Mallegni F.1; Carnieri E.; Bisconti M.; Tartarelli G.; Ricci S.; Biddittu I.; Segre A. Homo cepranensis sp. nov is published for fossil found in roadcut in Italy in 1994.
______________________________
info 2003 Homo sapiens idaltu subspecies named.
______________________________
info 2003 Homo cepranensis species named.
______________________________
info 2004 Homo floresiensis species named.
______________________________
info 2005 Ze Cheng, Mario Ventura, Xinwei She, Philipp Khaitovich, Tina Graves, Kazutoyo Osoegawa, Deanna Church, Pieter DeJong, Richard K. Wilson, Svante Pääbo, Mariano Rocchi, Evan E. Eichler Chimp genome completed and compared to human.
Cheng, Z., Ventura, M., She, X., Khaitovich, P., Graves, T., Osoegawa, K., Church, D., DeJong, P., Wilson, R.K., Pääbo, S., et al. 2005. A genome-wide comparison of recent chimpanzee and human segmental duplications. Nature 437: 88-93.
______________________________
info 2009 White et. al 'Ardi' Ardipithecus ramidus skeleton published
______________________________
 
 

INTERACTIVE LEARNING RESOURCES



VOCABUARY LISTS AND STUDY GUIDES
Osteology and anatomy terms
Human skeleton
Sediments and geology
Systematics, evolutionary history


OFF-SITE RESOURCES
HERC hominid cast catalog
What is paleoanthropology?
The trail of a hominid fossil