National Geographic Society
The National Geographic Society, headquartered in Washington, D. C. United States, is one of the largest non-profit scientific and educational organizations in the world. Founded in 1888, its interests include geography and natural science, the promotion of environmental and historical conservation, the study of world culture and history; the National Geographic Society's logo is a yellow portrait frame—rectangular in shape—which appears on the margins surrounding the front covers of its magazines and as its television channel logo. In partnership with The Walt Disney Company, the Society operates the magazine, TV channels, a website, worldwide events, other media operations; the National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 "to increase and diffuse geographic knowledge". It is governed by a board of trustees, whose 21 members include distinguished educators, business executives, former government officials and conservationists; the organization funds scientific research and exploration. National Geographic maintains a museum for the public in its Washington, D.
C. headquarters. It has helped to sponsor popular traveling exhibits, such as the early 2010s King Tut exhibit featuring artifacts from the tomb of the young Egyptian Pharaoh, its Education Foundation gives grants to education organizations and individuals to improve geography education. Its Committee for Research and Exploration has awarded more than 11,000 grants for scientific research and exploration. National Geographic has retail stores in Washington, D. C. London and Panama; the locations outside of the United States are operated by Worldwide Retail Store S. L. A Spanish holding company; the Society's media arm is National Geographic Partners, a joint venture between Walt Disney Television and the Society, which publishes a journal, National Geographic in English, nearly 40 local-language editions. It publishes other magazines, school products and Web and film products in numerous languages and countries. National Geographic's various media properties reach more than 280 million people monthly.
The National Geographic Society began as a club for an elite group of academics and wealthy patrons interested in travel and exploration. On January 13, 1888, 33 explorers and scientists gathered at the Cosmos Club, a private club located on Lafayette Square in Washington, D. C. to organize "a society for the increase and diffusion of geographical knowledge." After preparing a constitution and a plan of organization, the National Geographic Society was incorporated two weeks on January 27. Gardiner Greene Hubbard became its first president and his son-in-law, Alexander Graham Bell, succeeded him in 1897. In 1899, Bell's son-in-law Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor was named the first full-time editor of National Geographic magazine and served the organization for fifty-five years, members of the Grosvenor family have played important roles in the organization since. Bell and Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor devised the successful marketing notion of Society membership and the first major use of photographs to tell stories in magazines.
The chairman of the National Geographic Society is Jean Case. Michael Ulica is interim chief executive; the editor-in-chief of National Geographic magazine is Susan Goldberg. Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, a former chairman, received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for his leadership in geography education. In 2004, the National Geographic Society headquarters in Washington, D. C. was one of the first buildings to receive a "Green" certification from Global Green USA. The National Geographic received the prestigious Prince of Asturias Award for Communication and Humanities in October 2006 in Oviedo, Spain. In 2013 the society was investigated for possible violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act relating to their close association with an Egyptian government official responsible for antiquities. On September 9, 2015, the Society announced that it would re-organize its media properties and publications into a new company known as National Geographic Partners, which would be majority-owned by 21st Century Fox with a 73% stake.
This new, for-profit corporation, would own National Geographic and other magazines, as well as its affiliated television networks—most of which were owned in joint ventures with Fox. As a consequence, the Society and 21st Century Fox announced on November 2, 2015, that 9 percent of National Geographic's 2,000 employees 180 people, would be laid off, constituting the biggest staff reduction in the Society's history; the Society has helped sponsor many expeditions and research projects over the years, including: Codex Tchacos – Conservation and translation of the only known surviving copy of the Gospel of Judas Ian Baker – Discovers hidden waterfall of the Tsangpo Gorge, Tibet Robert Ballard – RMS Titanic and John F. Kennedy's PT-109 discovery Robert Bartlett – Arctic Exploration George Bass – Underwater archaeology – Bronze Age trade Lee Berger – Oldest footprints of modern humans found and Homo naledi Hiram Bingham – Machu Picchu Excavation Richard E. Byrd – First flight over South Pole Jacques-Yves Cousteau – Undersea exploration Mike Fay – MegaTransect and MegaFlyover in Africa Dian Fossey – Mountain gorillas Birute Galdikas – Orangutans Jane Goodall – Chimpanzees Robert F. Griggs – Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes Heather Halstead – World Circumnavigations of Reach the World Louis and Mary Leakey – Discovery of Australopithecus boisei and Homo habilis Gustavus McLeod – First flight to the
Tanzania
Tanzania the United Republic of Tanzania, is a country in eastern Africa within the African Great Lakes region. It borders Uganda to the north. Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain, is in north-eastern Tanzania; the first humans known lived in Pliocene Tanzania 6 million years ago. The genus Australopithecus ranged all over Africa 4-2 million years ago. Following the rise of Homo erectus 1.8 million years ago, mankind spread all over the Old World, in the New World and Australia under the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens overtook Africa and absorbed the older archaic species and subspecies of humanity. One of the oldest known ethnic groups still existing, the Hadzabe, appears to have originated in Tanzania, their oral history recalls ancestors who were tall and were the first to use fire and lived in caves, much like Homo erectus or Homo heidelbergensis who lived in the same region before them. In the Stone and Bronze Age, prehistoric migrations into Tanzania included Southern Cushitic speakers who moved south from present-day Ethiopia.
These movements took place at about the same time as the settlement of the Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika areas. They subsequently migrated across the rest of Tanzania between 1,700 years ago. European colonialism began in mainland Tanzania during the late 19th century when Germany formed German East Africa, which gave way to British rule following World War I; the mainland was governed as Tanganyika, with the Zanzibar Archipelago remaining a separate colonial jurisdiction. Following their respective independence in 1961 and 1963, the two entities merged in April 1964 to form the United Republic of Tanzania; the United Nations estimated Tanzania's 2016 population at 55.57 million. The population is composed of several ethnic and religious groups; the sovereign state of Tanzania is a presidential constitutional republic and since 1996 its official capital city has been Dodoma where the president's office, the National Assembly, some government ministries are located.
Dar es Salaam, the former capital, retains most government offices and is the country's largest city, principal port, leading commercial centre. Tanzania is a de facto one-party state with the democratic socialist Chama Cha Mapinduzi party in power. Tanzania is densely forested in the north-east, where Mount Kilimanjaro is located. Three of Africa's Great Lakes are within Tanzania. To the north and west lie Lake Victoria, Africa's largest lake, Lake Tanganyika, the continent's deepest lake, known for its unique species of fish. To the south lies Lake Malawi; the eastern shore is humid, with the Zanzibar Archipelago just offshore. The Menai Bay Conservation Area is Zanzibar's largest marine protected area; the Kalambo Falls, located on the Kalambo River at the Zambian border, is the second highest uninterrupted waterfall in Africa. Over 100 different languages are spoken in Tanzania, making it the most linguistically diverse country in East Africa; the country does not have a de jure official language.
Swahili is used in parliamentary debate, in the lower courts, as a medium of instruction in primary school. English is used in foreign trade, in diplomacy, in higher courts, as a medium of instruction in secondary and higher education, although the Tanzanian government is planning to discontinue English as a language of instruction altogether. 10 percent of Tanzanians speak Swahili as a first language, up to 90 percent speak it as a second language. The name "Tanzania" was created as a clipped compound of the names of the two states that unified to create the country: Tanganyika and Zanzibar, it comprises the first three letters of the two states, "Tan" and "Zan" as well as the only two vowels in the names of two states, "I" and "a" to form Tanzania. The name "Tanganyika" is derived from the Swahili words tanga and nyika, creating the phrase "sail in the wilderness", it is sometimes understood as a reference to Lake Tanganyika. The name of Zanzibar comes from "zenji", the name for a local people, the Arabic word "barr", which means coast or shore.
The indigenous populations of eastern Africa are thought to be the linguistically isolated Hadza and Sandawe hunter-gatherers of Tanzania. The first wave of migration was by Southern Cushitic speakers who moved south from Ethiopia and Somalia into Tanzania, they are ancestral to the Iraqw and Burunge. Based on linguistic evidence, there may have been two movements into Tanzania of Eastern Cushitic people at about 4,000 and 2,000 years ago, originating from north of Lake Turkana. Archaeological evidence supports the conclusion that Southern Nilotes, including the Datoog, moved south from the present-day South Sudan / Ethiopia border region into central northern Tanzania between 2,900 and 2,400 years ago; these movements took place at the same time as the settlement of the iron-making Mashariki Bantu from West Africa in the Lake Victoria and Lake Tanganyika areas. They brought with them the west African planting tradition and the p
Simian
The simians or Anthropoids are the monkeys, incl. apes, cladistically including: the New World monkeys or platyrrhines, the Catarrhine clade consisting of the Cercopithecidae and apes. The simians are sister to the tarsiers; the radiation occurred about 60 million years ago. 40 million years ago, simians from Afro-Arabia colonized South America, giving rise to the New World monkeys. The remaining simians split 25 million years ago into Cercopithecidae. In earlier classification, New World monkeys, Old World monkeys and humans—collectively known as simians or anthropoids—were grouped under Anthropoidea, while the strepsirrhines and tarsiers were grouped under the suborder "Prosimii". Under modern classification, the tarsiers and simians are grouped under the suborder Haplorhini while the strepsirrhines are placed in suborder Strepsirrhini. Strong genetic evidence for this is that five SINEs are common to all Haplorhines whilst absent in Strepsirrhines - one being coincidental between tarsiers and simians would be quite unlikely.
Despite this preferred taxonomic division, prosimian is still found in textbooks and the academic literature because of familiarity, a condition likened to the use of the metric system in the sciences and the use of customary units elsewhere in the United States. In Anthropoidea, evidence indicates that the Old and the New World primates went through parallel evolution. Primatology, paleoanthropology, other related fields are split on their usage of the synonymous infraorder names and Anthropoidea. According to Robert Hoffstetter, the term Simiiformes has priority over Anthropoidea because of the taxonomic term Simii by van der Hoeven, from which it is constructed, dates to 1833. In contrast, Anthropoidea by Mivart dates to 1864, while Simiiformes by Haeckel dates to 1866, leading to counterclaims of priority. Hoffstetter argued that Simiiformes is constructed like a proper infraorder name, whereas Anthropoidea ends in -oidea, reserved for superfamilies, he noted that Anthropoidea is too confused with "anthropoïdes", which translates to "apes" from several languages.
Extant simians are split into three distinct groups. The New World monkeys in parvorder Platyrrhini split from the rest of the simian line about 40 mya, leaving the parvorder Catarrhini occupying the Old World; this group split about 25 mya between the apes. There are some lines of extinct simian, either placed into Eosimiidae and sometimes in Amphipithecidae, thought to originate in the Early Oligocene. Additionally, Phileosimias is sometimes placed in the Eosimiidae and sometimes categorised separately; the following is the listing of the various simian families, their placement in the order Primates: Order Primates Suborder Strepsirrhini: non-tarsier prosimians Suborder Haplorhini: tarsiers + monkeys, including apes Infraorder Tarsiiformes Infraorder Simiiformes Parvorder Platyrrhini: New World monkeys Family Callitrichidae: marmosets and tamarins Family Cebidae: capuchins and squirrel monkeys Family Aotidae: night or owl monkeys Family Pitheciidae: titis and uakaris Family Atelidae: howler and woolly monkeys Parvorder Catarrhini Superfamily Cercopithecoidea Family Cercopithecidae Superfamily Hominoidea Family Hylobatidae: gibbons Family Hominidae: great apes, including humans †Amphipithecidae †EosimiidaeBelow is a cladogram with some of the extinct simian species with the more modern species emerging within the Eosimiidae.
The Simians originated in Asia. It is indicated how many million years ago the clades diverged into newer clades; the Ekgmowechashalidae are considered to be Strepsirrhini, not Haplorhini. A 2018 study places Eosimiidae as a sister to the crown haplorhini. In a section of their 2010 assessment of the evolution of anthropoids entitled'What Is An Anthropoid', Williams and Kirk set out a list of biological features that are common to all or most anthropoids, including genetic similarities, similarities in eye location and the muscles close to the eyes, internal similarities between ears, dental similarities, similarities on foot bone structure. Simia, Carl Linnaeus's original classification of these primates. BioMed Central Full text Gene conversion and purifying selection of a placenta-specific ERV-V envelope gene during simian evolution ADW Simiiformes Classification Taxonomy browser Late middle Eocene epoch of Libya yields earliest known radiation of African anthropoids Mouse-Sized Primates Shed Light on Human Origins
Cambrian
The Cambrian Period was the first geological period of the Paleozoic Era, of the Phanerozoic Eon. The Cambrian lasted 55.6 million years from the end of the preceding Ediacaran Period 541 million years ago to the beginning of the Ordovician Period 485.4 mya. Its subdivisions, its base, are somewhat in flux; the period was established by Adam Sedgwick, who named it after Cambria, the Latin name of Wales, where Britain's Cambrian rocks are best exposed. The Cambrian is unique in its unusually high proportion of lagerstätte sedimentary deposits, sites of exceptional preservation where "soft" parts of organisms are preserved as well as their more resistant shells; as a result, our understanding of the Cambrian biology surpasses that of some periods. The Cambrian marked a profound change in life on Earth. Complex, multicellular organisms became more common in the millions of years preceding the Cambrian, but it was not until this period that mineralized—hence fossilized—organisms became common; the rapid diversification of life forms in the Cambrian, known as the Cambrian explosion, produced the first representatives of all modern animal phyla.
Phylogenetic analysis has supported the view that during the Cambrian radiation, metazoa evolved monophyletically from a single common ancestor: flagellated colonial protists similar to modern choanoflagellates. Although diverse life forms prospered in the oceans, the land is thought to have been comparatively barren—with nothing more complex than a microbial soil crust and a few molluscs that emerged to browse on the microbial biofilm. Most of the continents were dry and rocky due to a lack of vegetation. Shallow seas flanked the margins of several continents created during the breakup of the supercontinent Pannotia; the seas were warm, polar ice was absent for much of the period. Despite the long recognition of its distinction from younger Ordovician rocks and older Precambrian rocks, it was not until 1994 that the Cambrian system/period was internationally ratified; the base of the Cambrian lies atop a complex assemblage of trace fossils known as the Treptichnus pedum assemblage. The use of Treptichnus pedum, a reference ichnofossil to mark the lower boundary of the Cambrian, is difficult since the occurrence of similar trace fossils belonging to the Treptichnids group are found well below the T. pedum in Namibia and Newfoundland, in the western USA.
The stratigraphic range of T. pedum overlaps the range of the Ediacaran fossils in Namibia, in Spain. The Cambrian Period was followed by the Ordovician Period; the Cambrian is divided into ten ages. Only three series and six stages are named and have a GSSP; because the international stratigraphic subdivision is not yet complete, many local subdivisions are still used. In some of these subdivisions the Cambrian is divided into three series with locally differing names – the Early Cambrian, Middle Cambrian and Furongian. Rocks of these epochs are referred to as belonging to Upper Cambrian. Trilobite zones allow biostratigraphic correlation in the Cambrian; each of the local series is divided into several stages. The Cambrian is divided into several regional faunal stages of which the Russian-Kazakhian system is most used in international parlance: *Most Russian paleontologists define the lower boundary of the Cambrian at the base of the Tommotian Stage, characterized by diversification and global distribution of organisms with mineral skeletons and the appearance of the first Archaeocyath bioherms.
The International Commission on Stratigraphy list the Cambrian period as beginning at 541 million years ago and ending at 485.4 million years ago. The lower boundary of the Cambrian was held to represent the first appearance of complex life, represented by trilobites; the recognition of small shelly fossils before the first trilobites, Ediacara biota earlier, led to calls for a more defined base to the Cambrian period. After decades of careful consideration, a continuous sedimentary sequence at Fortune Head, Newfoundland was settled upon as a formal base of the Cambrian period, to be correlated worldwide by the earliest appearance of Treptichnus pedum. Discovery of this fossil a few metres below the GSSP led to the refinement of this statement, it is the T. pedum ichnofossil assemblage, now formally used to correlate the base of the Cambrian. This formal designation allowed radiometric dates to be obtained from samples across the globe that corresponded to the base of the Cambrian. Early dates of 570 million years ago gained favour, though the methods used to obtain this number are now considered to be unsuitable and inaccurate.
A more precise date using modern radiometric dating yield a date of 541 ± 0.3 million years ago. The ash horizon in Oman from which this date was recovered corresponds to a marked fall in the abundance of carbon-13 that correlates to equivalent excursions elsewhere in the world, to the disappearance of distinctive Ediacaran fossils. There are arguments that the dated horizon in Oman does not correspond to the Ediacaran-Cambrian boundary, but represents a facies change from marine to evaporite-dominated strata — which w
Melville Bell Grosvenor
Melville Bell Grosvenor was the president of the National Geographic Society and editor of The National Geographic Magazine from 1957 to 1967. He was the grandson of telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell. A photography enthusiast, he increased the size of printed photographs in the magazine, initiated the practice, that continues to this day, of opening articles with a two-page photo feature, he reduced the name of the publication from The National Geographic Magazine to National Geographic. Under Grosvenor's tenure, National Geographic began to branch out from land expeditions to cover investigations into space and the deep sea. Grosvenor expanded the scope of the society's operations, branching into the production of documentaries bearing the National Geographic name, which began airing on television. Four of these were produced per year. Among the features produced during Grosvenor's presidency were documentaries covering the first American expedition to Mount Everest and Jacques Cousteau's underwater exploits.
Grosvenor was born in Washington, D. C. on November 26, 1901. His parents were Gilbert Hovey Grosvenor, the first editor of The National Geographic Magazine, Elsie May Grosvenor, the daughter of Alexander Graham Bell; the year following his birth, he helped to lay the cornerstone of the National Geographic Society's first building, Hubbard Hall, while in his grandfather's arms. In 1919, Grosvenor enrolled in the U. S. Naval Academy. On June 8, 1923, he graduated from the Academy with the Class of 1923, which included his lifelong friend, Admiral Arleigh Burke. After his graduation from the Naval Academy in 1923, Grosvenor was commissioned an ensign in the United States Navy. In 1924, Grosvenor resigned from the Navy and joined the staff of the National Geographic Society as a picture editor. Grosvenor is credited with taking the first color aerial photograph when he took a shot of the Statue of Liberty by circling the monument in a Navy Airship ZM C2; the photograph was published in the September 1930 issue, leading the Society to adopt the Finlay process the newest method for producing color photographs.
He took early aerial color photographs of Washington, D. C. which appeared in the magazine. After he became President of the Society and Editor of The National Geographic Magazine in 1957, Melville Grosvenor initiated major changes which are credited with resuscitating the organization and increasing membership from 2.1 million to 5.5 million. He added or promoted new editorial staff including Wilbur Garrett and Joseph Judge, photographers such as Thomas Nebbia and Bruce Dale. "Under his editorship, the magazine added full-color photographs to its black-white-yellow cover and installed new presses and equipment to enhance its high-quality color picture spreads," commented Robert McFadden about Melville Grosvenor in The New York Times. "Dr. Grosvenor did not modify the magazine's traditional tone of gentlemanly detachment from the ugliness and strife in the world." Grosvenor pushed the Society to create new products including television documentaries, books and its first Atlas of the World, published articles on exotic African and South American locations.
He commissioned articles on space and undersea research and other subjects. Grosvenor increased grants for research and exploration; the Society gave one of the first grants to oceanographer Jacques-Yves Cousteau, supported anthropologists Louis S. B. and Mary Leakey, primatologist Jane Goodall, other modern pioneers. Grosvenor campaigned to save the California redwoods before conservation became a popular cause. Grosvenor oversaw construction of the Society's new headquarters in Washington in 1963, dedicated by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Shortly after he received his commission in the Navy, he married Helen North Rowland of Washington, D. C. in 1924. Together, they were the parents of: Helen Rowland Grosvenor, engaged to Robert Barry Dunigan in 1944. In 1947, she was engaged to Robert Clement Watson, Jr. Alexander Graham Bell Grosvenor, a naval officer Captain, married to Marcia Braman. Gilbert Melville Grosvenor, editor of National Geographic from 1970 to 1980 before becoming president of the National Geographic Society, which he served until 1996.
He was married to Mary Helen Wiley Jarman in 1979. Grosvenor's second wife, Anne Elizabeth Revis, whom he married in 1950, was a longtime photographer for National Geographic. Together, they were the parents of: Edwin S. Grosvenor, the President and Editor-in-Chief of American Heritage Magazine. Sara Grosvenor, president of The Alexander and Mabel Bell Legacy Foundation. Grosvenor died on April 1982, at his winter home in Miami. McDowell, Bart, "Melville Bell Grosvenor, a Decade of Innovation, a Lifetime of Service". National Geographic, August 1982, pp. 270–278 McFadden, Robert D. "Melville B. Grosvenor Dies at 80-Led National Geographic Society," The New York Times, April 24, 1982 Poole, Robert M. Explorers House: National Geographic and the World it Made. New York: Penguin, 2004. ISBN 1594200327
Robert Broom
Robert Broom FRS FRSE 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. From 1903 to 1910 he was professor of zoology and geology at Victoria College, South Africa, subsequently he became keeper of vertebrate paleontology at the South African Museum, Cape Town. Broom was born at 66 Back Sneddon Street in Paisley, the son of John Broom, a designer of calico prints and Paisley shawls, Agnes Hunter Shearer. In 1893 he married Mary Baird Baillie. In his medical studies at the University of Glasgow Broom specialised in midwifery. After graduating in 1895 he travelled to Australia, he settled in South Africa in 1897, just prior to the South African War. From 1903 to 1910 he was professor of Zoology and Geology at Victoria College, but was forced out of this position for promoting belief in evolution, he established a medical practice in the Karoo region of South Africa, an area rich in Therapsid fossils.
Based on his continuing studies of these fossils and mammalian anatomy he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1920. Following the discovery of the Taung child he became interested in the search for human ancestors and commenced work on much more recent fossils from the dolomite caves north-west of Johannesburg Sterkfontein Cave; as well as describing many mammalian fossils from these caves he identified several hominin fossils, the most complete of, an Australopithecine skull, nicknamed Mrs Ples, a partial skeleton that indicated that Australopithecines walked upright. Broom died in Pretoria, South Africa in 1951. Broom was first known for his study of mammal-like reptiles. After Raymond Dart's discovery of the Taung Child, an infant australopithecine, Broom's interest in paleoanthropology was heightened. Broom's career seemed over and he was sinking into poverty, when Dart wrote to Jan Smuts about the situation. Smuts, exerting pressure on the South African government, managed to obtain a position for Broom in 1934 with the staff of the Transvaal Museum in Pretoria as an Assistant in Palaeontology.
In the following years, he and John T. Robinson made a series of spectacular finds, including fragments from six hominins in Sterkfontein, which they named Plesianthropus transvaalensis, popularly called Mrs. Ples, but, classified as an adult Australopithecus africanus, as well as more discoveries at sites in Kromdraai and Swartkrans. In 1937, Broom made his most famous discovery, by defining the robust hominin genus Paranthropus with his discovery of Paranthropus robustus; these discoveries helped support Dart's claims for the Taung species. The remainder of Broom's career was devoted to the exploration of these sites and the interpretation of the many early hominin remains discovered there. For his volume, The South Africa Fossil Ape-Men, The Australopithecinae, in which he proposed the Australopithecinae subfamily, Broom was awarded the Daniel Giraud Elliot Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1946, he continued to write to the last. Shortly before his death he finished a monograph on the Australopithecines and remarked to his nephew: "Now that's finished... and so am I."
Broom was a nonconformist and was interested in the paranormal and spiritualism. Broom was a believer in spiritual evolution. In his book The Coming of Man: Was it Accident or Design? he claimed that "spiritual agencies" had guided evolution as animals and plants were too complex to have arisen by chance. According to Broom, there were at least two different kinds of spiritual forces, psychics are capable of seeing them. Broom claimed there was a plan and purpose in evolution and that the origin of Homo sapiens is the ultimate purpose behind evolution. According to Broom "Much of evolution looks as if it had been planned to result in man, in other animals and plants to make the world a suitable place for him to dwell in."After discovering the skull of Mrs. Ples, Broom was asked if he excavated at random, Broom replied that spirits had told him where to find his discoveries. Among hundreds of articles contributed by him to scientific journals, the most important include: "Fossil Reptiles of South Africa" in Science in South Africa "Reptiles of Karroo Formation" in Geology of Cape Colony "Development and Morphology of the Marsupial Shoulder Girdle" in Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh "Comparison of Permian Reptiles of North America with Those of South Africa" in Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History "Structure of Skull in Cynodont Reptiles" in Proceedings of the Zoölogical Society.
The South Africa Fossil Ape-Men, The Australopithecinae. Books The origin of the human skeleton: an introduction to human osteology The mammal-like reptiles of South Africa and the origin of mammals The coming of man: was it accident or design? The South African fossil ape-man: the Australopithecinae Sterkfontein ape-man Plesianthropus Finding the missing link List of fossil sites List of hominina fossils Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research Biographies: Robert Broom TalkOrigins Archive Robert Broom: A Short Bibliography of his Evolutionary Works, MPRInstitute.org site. British metaphysics as reflected in Robert Broom's evolutionary theory, translation of an article by Václav Petr published in Bulletin of the Czech Geological Survey, 75: 73-85. Praha 2000. Text and photos displayed entire at the MPRInstitute.org site
Paranthropus robustus
Paranthropus robustus is an early hominin discovered in Southern Africa in 1938. Regarding cranial features, the development of P. robustus seemed to be in the direction of a "heavy-chewing complex". On account of the definitive traits associated with this "robust" line of australopithecine, anthropologist Robert Broom established the genus Paranthropus and placed this species in it. Paranthropus robustus is dated to have lived between 2.0 and 1.2 million years ago. It had large jaws and jaw muscles with the accompanying sagittal crest, post-canine teeth that were adapted to serve in the dry environment they lived in; the post-canine teeth commonly display pitting enamel hypoplasia, thought to be caused by a genetic condition, amelogenesis imperfecta, was common due to instability in crucial gene after evolving such large teeth. After Raymond Dart’s discovery of Australopithecus africanus, Robert Broom was in favour of Dart's claim that Australopithecus africanus was an ancestor of Homo sapiens.
However, there was a great deal of criticism from the academic community. Many claimed that Dart had been premature in naming the species as the type specimen, called Taung Child, was a represented by a single skull of a juvenile, it was thought. Broom was a Scottish doctor working in South Africa, who began making his own excavations in Southern Africa to find more specimens of A. africanus, to help strengthen Dart's position. It was his intent to find complete adult skeletons that would justify the species designation of A. africanus, further justify its place as an ancestor of modern humans. In 1938, at 70 years old, Broom was excavating at Kromdraai, South Africa and discovered pieces of a skull and teeth which resembled Dart's Australopithecus africanus find, but the skull had some "robust" characteristics; the fossils included parts of teeth, all dated to 2 million years old. Sites with fossils of Paranthropus robustus are found only in South Africa, include the sites of Kromdraai, Drimolen and Coopers.
In the cave at Swartkrans the remains of 130 individuals were discovered. The study made on the dentition of the hominins revealed that the average P. robustus lived past 17 years of age. Paranthropus robustus was the first discovery of a "robust" species of hominin; these three species have alternately placed within the genus Australopithecus. This is because in many small details, the species robustus resembles A. africanus more than it does either of the other "robust" species, aethiopicus or boisei. Broom's discovery was the second australopithecine after Australopithecus africanus. Typical of robust australopithecines, P. robustus had a head shaped a bit like a gorilla's with a more massive built jaw and teeth in comparison to hominins within the Homo lineage. The sagittal crest that runs from the top of the skull acts as an anchor for large chewing muscles; the DNH 7 skull of Paranthropus robustus, "Eurydice", was discovered in 1994 at the Drimolen Cave in Southern Africa by Andre Keyser, is dated to 2.3 million years old belonging to a female.
The teeth of these primates were larger and thicker than any gracile australopithecine found, due to the morphology differences Broom designated his find as Australopithecus robustus. On the skull, a bony ridge is located above from the front to back indicating where the jaw muscles joined. P. robustus males may have stood only 1.2m tall and weighed 54 kg while females stood just under 1 meter tall and weighed only 40 kg, indicating a large sexual dimorphism. The teeth found on P. robustus are as large as those of P. boisei. Broom analyzed his findings and noted the differences in the molar teeth size which resembled a gorilla's a bit more than a human's. Other P. robustus remains have been found in Southern Africa. The average brain size of P. robustus measured to only 410 and 530 cc, about as large as a chimpanzee's. Some have argued that P robustus had a diet of hard gritty foods such as nuts and tubers since they lived in open woodland and savanna. More recent research suggests that this taxon was more of a dietary generalist, others have argued that they principally consumed hard and gritty resources as fallback foods only during time of nutritional stress.
A 2011 study using ratios of strontium isotopes in teeth suggested that Australopithecus africanus and P. robustus groups in southern Africa were patrilocal: females tended to settle farther from their region of birth than males did. List of fossil sites List of human evolution fossils MNSU Archaeology Info Paranthropus robustus - The Smithsonian Institution's Human Origins Program Most complete ape-man skull found - but he is a she Researchers discuss ape-man fossil find Coopers Cave Home Page Human Timeline – Smithsonian, National Museum of Natural History
