Hist. Sci., xlvii (2009)
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH AND
ITS PLACE IN THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE: RESEARCH
PROBLEMS AND HISTORIOGRAPHY
Matthew R. Goodrum
Virginia Tech
Palaeoanthropology is a relatively recent science when its history is compared to that
of other natural sciences, but it has grown to become a prominent field of study that
has produced many remarkable discoveries and important theories. It has constructed
a professional identity and formed its own institutions, while still retaining close
links with other natural and social sciences. Most significantly, it has revolutionized
our understanding of human origins and prehistoric human culture. This paper is a
historiographical study of recent scholarship in the history of palaeoanthropology and
other sciences involved in human origins research that will attempt to outline some
prospective new areas of enquiry as well as some promising ways of examining that
history. Historically palaeoanthropology grew out of a number of different sciences
and today it still encompasses a range of problems and sub-disciplines, and therefore
in this paper I include within its scope human evolution, hominid palaeontology, and
prehistoric archaeology, while acknowledging other fields that have contributed to
the study of human origins. Indeed, examining this conception of palaeoanthropology is one of my objectives.
The dramatic changes that have occurred in palaeoanthropology in recent decades
have led some practitioners to become interested in the history of their discipline
and a number of recent works examine the major discoveries and theoretical developments of palaeoanthropology in the twentieth century.1 This is not the first time
that palaeoanthropologists have taken a retrospective look at their past in order to
assess the current state of their field following a period of rapid growth and upheaval.
During the middle of the last century, just when palaeoanthropology was emerging
as a distinct discipline, scientists and popularizers of science published historical
surveys of the emergence and development of human origins research that usually
begin with Darwin, evolutionary theory, and the first discoveries of human fossils
in the nineteenth century.2 Most of these early works portray the history of palaeoanthropology as consisting of a series of hominid fossil discoveries and models of
human evolution that changed over time as the fossil evidence and biological theories
changed. Only occasionally was the history of palaeoanthropology situated within
the broader developments that were taking place in the other natural sciences, and
rarely do they discuss the external social factors that helped shape the history of
human origins research.
Despite the prominent accomplishments of palaeoanthropology and its growing stature as a science, few general histories of modern science even mention
0073-2753/09/4703-0337/$10.00 © 2009 Science History Publications Ltd
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MATTHEW R. GOODRUM
palaeoanthropology3 and historians of science have only recently begun to write on
the subject. This reflects the relative lack of interest in the history of anthropology and
archaeology among historians of science. This situation is changing, however, as an
increasing number of historical works are beginning to investigate aspects of the history
of palaeoanthropology from the perspective of social history, the history of science,
and the philosophy of science. As a result, entirely new questions and problems are
being raised about the scientific study of human origins and prehistory. Many of these
recent works examine specific aspects of the history of palaeoanthropology that are
directly connected to developments in a particular natural science such as geology,
palaeontology, or biology. These works have expanded our knowledge hugely, but
they often do not address the bigger picture of how specific problems or theories in
palaeoanthropology extend beyond disciplinary boundaries. We have begun to acquire
some fragments of the history of palaeoanthropology, but what is needed is a more
comprehensive view of what the history of palaeoanthropology is and perhaps some
suggestions for how to investigate that history. Thus, one objective of this paper is to
propose some ideas about what the history of palaeoanthropology encompasses and
how a new generation of scholars might build upon the work that has already been
done. This paper will argue that the most productive perspective of the history of palaeoanthropology is one that recognizes the interrelationships between developments in
geology, palaeontology, evolutionary theory, archaeology, and physical anthropology.
An additional weakness of some recent scholarship is that historians who approach the
history of palaeoanthropology from the natural sciences can tend to diminish the role
of developments in the human sciences, while historians of anthropology and archaeology equally can misjudge the significance of developments in the natural sciences. I
hope this paper can help bridge the gap that sometimes appears to exist between the
history of the natural sciences and the history of the human sciences.
Another central argument I wish to make is that a more nuanced and complex
picture of modern human origins research will emerge if the ideas, methodologies,
and theoretical perspectives that have arisen within the discipline of science studies
are applied to analysing the history of palaeoanthropology. Examples of this kind of
scholarship are already beginning to appear. Some scholars have begun to explore
the metaphysical foundations of human origins research, challenging the assumptions
employed by its practitioners, the methodology of the various sciences contributing
to this research, and the social and cultural motives that have led scientists to try to
understand and explain human biological and cultural evolution.4 Studies of gender
in history and feminist scholarship have led some researchers to investigate the role
of women in palaeoanthropology and the ways that gender has influenced theories
of human biological and cultural evolution. Others have raised questions about the
way palaeoanthropologists have conceptualized or portrayed women in prehistory,
from simply excluding women from accounts of human origins to recent theories
that emphasize the role of women and women’s activities.5
The growing interest among some historians of science in the history of scientific
illustration and the role of images in communicating knowledge has influenced some
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
· 339
provocative recent studies of illustrations and reconstructions of human prehistory
and of hominid species. This research has investigated the way assumptions about
human evolution or the phylogenetic status of hominids such as the Neanderthals
or the australopithecines have influenced the way they are depicted in illustrations.
Illustrations of human prehistory are, therefore, a resource that historians can use to
analyse the theories and presuppositions of palaeoanthropologists.6 Meanwhile, other
scholars have borrowed techniques from textual analysis and literary studies in order
to examine the narratives constructed by palaeoanthropologists in their theories and
scenarios of human evolution, which have offered insights into the role that mythical
and literary formulations still play in accounts of human origins.7
For all of these reasons the time is ripe for a comprehensive look at what has
been accomplished by scholars investigating the history of palaeoanthropology and
the other sciences related to human origins research, at what still needs to be done,
and what ideas and perspectives might be employed to further that research. It will
also serve as an opportunity to examine what palaeoanthropology is today and how
it emerged as a discipline, as well as an opportunity to examine its place in modern
science and modern culture. And finally, it will allow us to explore the place of the
history of palaeoanthropology within the history of science.
CONTRIBUTIONS OF ARCHAEOLOGY AND GEOLOGY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
Difficulties arise since palaeoanthropology as a term and as a discipline only appears
in the twentieth century, but it emerged directly out of problems and discoveries
extending back into the early nineteenth century. Many histories of palaeoanthropology consider the beginnings of the modern scientific study of human origins to have
begun in the nineteenth century at the earliest and most of their research only extends
back to this period. For this reason I will treat the history of human origins research
during the last two centuries only. However, it is important to recognize that many
important developments in the sciences and scholarship generally in the seventeenth
and eighteenth centuries provided a foundation for subsequent ideas about human
origins. Geologists and palaeontologists had dramatically extended the history of
the earth and had begun to outline the history of life on earth. Zoologists such as
Carl Linnaeus had begun to examine the anatomical and taxonomic relationship of
humans with other animals and the European voyages of exploration were confronting
researchers with the problem of how the expanding variety of human populations,
increasingly defined as distinct races, were related to one another. Furthermore,
antiquaries were just beginning to unearth the material artifacts of prehistoric peoples, thus extending European history into ever deeper periods into the past, while
philologists were exploring the connections between human languages, which was
also suggesting a far longer history for humans than the biblical chronology permitted.8 And pervading all early inquiries into human origins was the fact that these new
discoveries and theories deviated more and more from the biblical account of human
origins. While many scientists were unconcerned with the religious implications of
their ideas, many religious leaders and members of the public were. Thus human
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MATTHEW R. GOODRUM
origins research emerged from a wide array of problems and scientific investigations,
so the task before us is to show how in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries these
distinct problems and sciences grew into new problems and a new discipline that
we call palaeoanthropology.
Archaeology has been a primary means by which human prehistory has been
investigated and during the nineteenth century it was undergoing dramatic change as
it became professionalized and archaeologists formulated a rigorous scientific methodology.9 Collectors accumulating archaeological artifacts in private museums and
in large public institutions provided an important impetus to the study of prehistory,
and the objects contained in these collections posed challenging questions about the
earliest periods of human history. Museums became centres of research and for the
education of the public and were critical to the development of prehistoric archaeology, but the history of institutions devoted to the study of prehistory remains largely
unwritten.10 During the first half of the nineteenth century prehistoric archaeology was
transformed when Scandinavian archaeologists, led by Christian Jurgensen Thomsen
(1788–1865) and Jens Jacob Asmussen Worsaae (1821–85), proposed the Three
Age System. On the basis of excavations in Denmark and later throughout northern
Europe they argued that prehistoric sites could be organized chronologically into
three successive periods: a Stone, Bronze, and Iron Age. Historians of archaeology
have argued that this idea revolutionized the study of prehistory by suggesting an
order and a structure to prehistory as well as establishing a schema within which to
interpret prehistoric artifacts.11 Underlying these developments were the relationships
that existed between the practices and objectives of archaeological fieldwork and
natural history fieldwork at this time and the ways archaeology and natural history
museums organized and displayed specimens in order to communicate a narrative
of the history of the earth and of life on earth.
While archaeologists were investigating recent human prehistory in Europe,
geologists were beginning to discover troubling evidence of an even greater human
antiquity. Much has been written about the discovery of flint implements found with
the fossils of extinct mammals between 1820 and 1860 and the role these discoveries
played in convincing a sceptical scientific community that humans had been in the
world far longer than the six thousand years permitted by biblical chronology.12 The
discovery by the English palaeontologist William Buckland (1784–1856) in 1823
of a human skeleton in a cave among the bones of extinct mammals has attracted
attention from historians since it was one of the earliest cases that suggested humans
had coexisted with animals from a geologically remote period in the past, yet Buckland was able to explain away this interpretation by suggesting the remains were
an intrusive burial of a Roman period Briton.13 Similar attention is given to the
excavations of Philippe-Charles Schmerling (1791–1836) at Engis, near Liège in
Belgium, where human remains and stone artifacts were found in cave deposits with
large quantities of extinct mammal bones. Discussions of Schmerling’s work have
rightly emphasized the fact that he was one of the first palaeontologists to argue for
a great human antiquity.14 Unfortunately, many of the studies of Schmerling take a
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
· 341
limited biographical approach to his research and do not situate it within the context
of palaeontological and archaeological research at the time.15
The greatest attention is given to excavations conducted in France and Britain in the
1840s and 1850s since these decades are seen as the pivotal period when the study of
human origins was revolutionized. Some consider the researches of Jacques Boucher
de Perthes (1788–1868), a customs official who amassed an immense collection of
flint artifacts from deposits containing extinct mammal fossils in the Somme River
valley, to be the beginning of modern prehistoric archaeology.16 Many authors consider Boucher de Perthes to be important because he recognized the meaning of these
flint implements earlier than did many others and because his collection assumed a
new significance after excavations in Britain led to similar conclusions. Recent studies have discussed other aspects of his scientific life such as the role of geological
theory and of Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck’s transmutationist biology in his thinking,
or have examined his broader scientific and literary aspirations.17 Other historians
have emphasized instead the excavations conducted at Brixham Cave, in Britain, by
members of the Geological Society of London in 1858 and 1859 as a critical event
that led geologists to reassess the evidence for an unimaginable human antiquity.18
In all these cases we see geological, palaeontological, and archaeological discoveries
confronting religious, historical, and philosophical ideas regarding human origins
in ways that produced resistance and debate over the meaning of human artifacts
found in geological deposits containing extinct animals. This debate extended well
beyond the realm of science, but once the debate ended new research problems and
a radically different conception of human origins arose.
The publication of Charles Lyell’s Geological evidences of the antiquity of man
(1863) has come to mark the point at which the debate over human antiquity began
to be settled and attention turned toward exploring a whole new set of problems.19
Geologists began in the 1860s to search for other sites containing human artifacts
associated with extinct mammals in order to determine just how deep in the geological strata they could find evidence of human presence, while archaeologists tried to
understand how the crude flint implements found with extinct animal fossils related to
the less ancient and less controversial Stone Age tools identified earlier in the century.
Several interesting studies have been published recently on the contributions of the
English archaeologist Sir John Lubbock (1834–1913) and the Scottish archaeologist
Daniel Wilson (1816–92) to the history of prehistoric archaeology.20 Lubbock’s Prehistoric times (1865) was one of the first works to provide a comprehensive survey
of research in prehistoric archaeology and it introduced the idea that the Stone Age
needed to be divided into two distinct periods, the Palaeolithic represented by crudely
chipped flint implements and the Neolithic represented by more finely crafted tools
from later more advanced peoples.
Both Lubbock’s Pre-historic times and Daniel Wilson’s Prehistoric man (1862)
mark the emergence of a new discipline, prehistoric archaeology, and the use of the
term ‘prehistory’ in English. Several writers have subjected the origins and formulation
of the concept of prehistory to scrutiny, noting that various terms were invented in
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different European languages to designate this new idea that encompassed a new set
of facts that required investigation within a new science.21 This raises interesting questions about discipline formation and much remains unknown about how prehistoric
archaeology laid claim to research domains that previously resided partially within
geology and partially within archaeology. Central to these developments were the
establishment of professional societies and journals devoted to prehistoric archaeology in the nineteenth century, and historians are only beginning to examine how
prehistoric archaeology developed differently in different countries.22
Geologists and prehistoric archaeologists during the second half of the nineteenth
century discovered numerous Palaeolithic sites in Britain and France that offered
new insights about when humans first appeared on earth and what those original
humans were like. While there were a large number of researchers and discoveries
during this period, historians have tended to focus on only a few major figures and
their accomplishments. Scholars note the excavations of the French palaeontologist
Édouard Lartet (1801–71) at Aurignac and in the Dordogne regions of France as
representing a significant advance in the development of Palaeolithic archaeology,23
as was the subdivision of the Palaeolithic by the French archaeologist Gabriel de
Mortillet (1821–98) into the successive stages of the Chellean, Acheulian, Mousterian, Solutrean, and Magdalenian — each represented by its own distinct stone tool
industry. De Mortillet’s ideas about the evolution of culture, his role in developing
institutions for the study of prehistory, and his political and social activism make him
an influential figure in the history of palaeoanthropology,24 but a great deal remains
unknown about the contributions of many other geologists and archaeologists of that
generation throughout Europe.
The so-called eolith controversy, which raged around the turn of the century,
demonstrates the enthusiasm and uncertainty that existed at the limits of prehistoric
archaeology during this time. Historians have examined how the debate over eoliths,
naturally fractured flint flakes that some archaeologists thought were the earliest
stone tools, was eventually resolved, while others have focused on the reasons
archaeologists believed such artifacts should exist and how eoliths were used to
justify certain views about human origins.25 The doubts and confusion surrounding
eoliths paled in comparison to the debates that arose among European prehistorians
after the excavation of carved bone and stone figures in cave deposits, followed
by the surprising discovery of prehistoric cave paintings at Altamira, in Spain,
in 1879. These examples of “prehistoric art” generated considerable controversy
and posed challenging questions about the cultural and intellectual abilities of
prehistoric humans. Indeed, it was not until additional cave paintings were found
in the caverns of Trois Frères and Lascaux in the early twentieth century that prehistoric paintings were even taken seriously by most anthropologists. Very little
historical scholarship exists on the debates over the meaning of prehistoric art,26
which is unfortunate since they raise interesting questions about the preconceptions anthropologists had of prehistoric humans, as well as questions about what
was considered to be a credible archeological artifact.
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EVOLUTION THEORY AND THE HOMINID FOSSIL RECORD
In a coincidence of history, at the same time that excavations at Brixham Cave in
Britain and the reassessment of Boucher de Perthes’s discoveries in France were
thrusting the idea of the geological antiquity of humanity before European scientists, Charles Darwin published On the origin of species (1859). Darwin’s theory
of evolution by natural selection, with its implications for the problem of human
origins, is a critical event in the history of palaeoanthropology. An immense quantity
of scholarship exists on Darwin and evolution theory and there are many resources
that discuss this literature. Therefore, I will discuss only those works that focus on
the ways evolution theory was applied directly to the question of human evolution.
The French naturalist Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck (1744–1829) had already proposed
a theory of the transmutation of species in his Philosophie zoologique (1809) that
situated the origin of humans within the context of a biological theory of species
change.27 Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection transformed the study of
human origins by suggesting that humans had arisen from an apelike ancestor at a
remote period in the geologic past. It implied that humans were closely related to the
existing primates and that much could be learned about human evolution by studying
modern apes and monkeys. This resulted in primatology becoming a science that made
valuable contributions to palaeoanthropology. Darwin’s notion of common ancestors
and the role of palaeontology in providing fossil evidence of evolution led to the
notion that the fossil record should contain creatures ancestral to modern humans,
the so-called “missing links”. Darwin did not address the implications of evolution
theory for human origins until 1871 in his Descent of man, but immediately upon
the publication of the Origin of species debate began among scientists and the public
over the implications of evolution for the nature and origins of humans.28
Evolution had implication for other disciplines related to human origins research
as well. Victorian physical and social anthropology were profoundly affected by
evolutionary theory.29 Archaeological theory was also influenced by evolution well
into the twentieth century.30 After Darwin, palaeontology and biology assumed a
new importance in human origins research, whereas earlier in the century archaeology, geology, and physical anthropology were the more relevant sciences. Thomas
Henry Huxley (1825–95) produced important anatomical comparisons of humans
and the anthropoid apes as well as an influential examination of the original Neanderthal fossils, all within the context of evolutionary theory, and the application
of Darwin’s theory to the problem of human evolution by Huxley in Britain and
Ernst Haeckel (1834–1919) in Germany led researchers to construct hypothetical
phylogenies representing the evolutionary history of humans back to our primate
ancestors, and in the process anthropologists addressed in new ways the question of
a monogenist or polygenist origin of the modern human races and the relationship
of humans to the apes.31 But perhaps the most significant impact of evolutionary
theory, especially coming on the heels of the geological evidence that suggested to
many a considerable geological antiquity for mankind, was the impetus it created
to search for the fossil evidence that humans had indeed evolved.
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The twentieth century produced a long succession of spectacular discoveries of
increasingly older hominid fossils, the ancestors that inhabit the human evolutionary
family tree. The importance of these fossils for palaeoanthropological theory and the
dramatic nature of the fossils themselves have meant that some accounts of twentiethcentury palaeoanthropology are little more than summaries of how and when each
famous hominid fossil was discovered. While hominid palaeontology is a major
component of palaeoanthropology, it is only one element of a much more complex
story of the history of palaeoanthropology in the twentieth century. A great deal of
the historical research conducted to date tends to focus on the fossil discoveries, but
some of these works do an exemplary job of describing how each major hominid fossil
was found, how they were interpreted, and their contribution to palaeoanthropological
theory during the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.32
The search for the fossil remains of prehistoric humans had already begun by
the time Darwin’s theory was becoming accepted. The discovery of archaeological
artifacts with extinct animals had led some people to seek the skeletal remains of
the people who made them, but human palaeontology assumed a new importance
after Darwin. Great uncertainty and controversy surrounded the discovery of portions of a fossilized skeleton by quarry workers in the Neander valley in Germany
in 1856. Many historians have written about the discovery of this first Neanderthal
specimen, the debates these fossils sparked in Germany and elsewhere in Europe,
and the impact they had on the fledgling science of human palaeontology and human
evolution. Several interesting works have analysed the debates that arose in Germany
over the significance and meaning of the fossils,33 while other works have examined
the impact this and subsequent Neanderthal fossils had on theories of human evolution.34 However, enough uncertainty surrounded the anthropological and evolutionary
significance of this specimen that it was not until the end of the nineteenth century that
the Neanderthals became a major subject of study. The discovery of human skeletal
remains at Les Eyzies, in the Dordogne region of France, in 1868 was significant
primarily because they represented the makers of the Palaeolithic tools and as such
were very ancient humans,35 but they were fully human and did not represent an
apelike human ancestor. Perhaps this is the reason why few historians have explored
more fully the significance of this discovery and its relationship to other discoveries
at the time.
Excitement over the possibilities of human palaeontology rose considerably around
the turn of the century as the result of a quick succession of surprising fossil specimens. Between 1890 and 1892 Eugène Dubois (1858–1940), a Dutch physician who
had gone to Southeast Asia to search for the missing link that was hypothesized by
Darwin and Ernst Haeckel, discovered a skullcap and a femur on the island of Java
in geological deposits that contained Pleistocene mammals. The apelike morphology of the skull and the humanlike femur led Dubois to announce in 1894 that he
had found the evolutionary link between apes and humans, a creature that he named
Pithecanthropus erectus. A number of excellent works discuss the background to
Dubois’s excavations and his interpretation of Pithecanthropus as a direct human
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
· 345
ancestor, as well as the factors that induced the majority of his European and American
colleagues to reject Dubois’s interpretation of the specimen.36
Attention soon turned away from Dubois’s remarkable but ambiguous discoveries
in Java when new specimens of fossil humans were found in Europe. The German
palaeontologist Otto Schoetensack (1850–1912) published an account of a fossil
human jaw found by quarry workers in 1907, which he thought belonged to a primitive human that he called Homo heidelbergensis. The following year a Neanderthal
skeleton was discovered near the French village of La Chapelle-aux-Saints and
sent to the palaeontologist Marcellin Boule (1861–1942) at the Muséum National
d’Histoire Naturelle in Paris. Although several Neanderthal skeletons had been found
at Spy d’Orneau in Belgium in 1886,37 historians consider Boule’s analysis of the La
Chapelle-aux-Saints Neanderthal to be a definitive event that shaped attitudes about
the Neanderthals for over half a century. This is an interesting episode for scholars
because it unites questions of the role of scientific institutions, Boule’s methods for
analysing Neanderthal anatomy, the role of his views on evolution, and the impact of
bias in scientific research, as well as the social context within which Boule conducted
his study.38 It is only recently that historians have begun to acknowledge the equally
significant researches conducted by the German-Croatian palaeontologist Dragutin
Gorjanović-Kramberger (1856–1936). Between 1899 and 1905 Gorjanovic-Kramberger excavated artifacts and a substantial number of Neanderthal specimens from
a site near the Croatian village of Krapina. Palaeoanthropologists took a renewed
interested in these specimens in the 1970s and this led researchers to reexamine the
work of Gorjanovic-Kramberger, which proved to be innovative for its time.39 Much
research remains to be done not only on Gorjanovic-Kramberger and his influence,
but also on palaeoanthropological research in Germany and eastern Europe during
the early twentieth century, a subject about which we know very little.
Neanderthal fossils were not the only early human remains turning up in Europe,
however. Tremendous interest and excitement developed around the discovery by
Charles Dawson (1864–1916) of a cranium and part of a mandible excavated from
a gravel pit at Piltdown Common, in Sussex, England, between 1908 and 1912.
Dawson, a lawyer and amateur palaeontologist, brought his specimens to Arthur
Smith Woodward, Keeper of Geology at the British Museum (Natural History), in
1912, and soon thereafter they announced a new species of early human, Eoanthropus
dawsoni or Piltdown Man. The large humanlike cranium and apelike jaw fitted many
anthropologists’ model of human evolution and the Piltdown fossils influenced the
study of human origins for decades until 1953, when it was shown to be a hoax. A
voluminous literature surrounds the history of this, now notorious, specimen. Much
of the scholarship continues to focus upon the question of who perpetrated the hoax
and how it was done.40 More recent scholarship has examined the Piltdown episode
within the broader context of human origins research at the time, showing that there
were archaeological and evolutionary reasons for expecting that a creature with the
anatomical features of the Piltdown fossils would be found in Plio-Pleistocene deposits. Moreover, there were social reasons why British scientists were eager to accept
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the Piltdown Man found on British soil.41 This recent scholarship also begins to draw
much needed attention to the events surrounding the exposure of the Piltdown fossils
as fraudulent. The reasons why the Oxford anthropologist Joseph Weiner, the Oxford
anatomist Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, and the palaeontologist Kenneth Oakley became
suspicious of the specimens and the process by which they were able definitively
to demonstrate that they were a hoax still needs to be studied in more detail.42 The
Piltdown affair could also be fruitfully examined within the framework of studies of
fraud in science generally.
New models of human evolution emerged after the discovery of Pithecanthropus,
the Neanderthals, and Piltdown. In the United States, the physical anthropologist
Aleš Hrdlička (1869–1943) proposed the Neanderthal phase hypothesis, which
argued that modern humans had evolved directly from the Neanderthals.43 By contrast a number of anthropologists, exemplified by Arthur Keith (1866–1955) and
Henri Vallois (1889–1981), supported the Pre-sapiens hypothesis, which rejected
the Neanderthals as direct human ancestors and argued instead that anatomically
modern humans had appeared already by the Pliocene.44 This diversity of opinion
about human evolution may be grounded in the fact that evolutionary theory itself
had fragmented into several different forms depending upon whether one supported
Darwin’s mechanism of natural selection, neo-Lamarckian mechanisms, or some
form of orthogenesis.45 This schism within evolutionary theory also influenced conceptions of human evolution, and many versions of human evolution during the first
half of the twentieth century relied upon non-Darwinian models of how evolution
operated.46 Theoretical ideas coming from biology, physical anthropology, hominid
palaeontology, and even archaeology all interacted to help shape ideas about the
process of human evolution, models of hominid phylogeny, and the interpretation of
specific hominid specimens, but to date scholars have studied only portions of this
complex component of twentieth-century palaeoanthropology.
HOMINID DISCOVERIES IN ASIA AND AFRICA IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
A profound change occurred within palaeoanthropology in the 1920s and 1930s
when excavations in Asia and Africa opened new territory for exploration and
produced new hominid specimens to consider.47 Scholars have written about the
excavations of the Canadian anatomist Davidson Black (1884–1934) at Zhoukoudian, near Beijing in China, that produced a substantial collection of artifacts and
numerous fossils belonging to a species of hominid that Black named Sinanthropus
pekinensis and that the press called Peking Man. More recently, historians have
also begun to consider the contributions made by Black’s Chinese colleagues and
to investigate the history of palaeoanthropological research in China during the last
half-century.48 Less scholarship exists on the excavations conducted by the German
palaeontologist Gustav Heinrich Ralph von Koenigswald (1902–82) in Indonesia
during the 1930s, which produced a number of new Pithecanthropus specimens that
were instrumental in convincing European anthropologists to reconsider Eugène
Dubois’s original interpretation of Pithecanthropus.
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While the discoveries of hominids in Asia generated considerable interest and
anthropologists generally accepted the idea that these hominids were the evolutionary ancestors of modern humans and that Asia was the probable cradle of humanity,
fossils unearthed in Africa during this period faced a very different fate, at least at
first. When Raymond Dart (1893–1988), professor of anatomy at the University of
Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, published in 1925 his description of
a humanlike ape that he called Australopithecus africanus the specimen was greeted
with interest but general scepticism. Scholars have identified a number of reasons for
the cool reception that faced Dart’s claim that he had found the link between apes
and humans and they have examined the process by which palaeoanthropologists
gradually came to change their minds about the australopithecines.49 Attitudes toward
the australopithecines changed during the 1940s largely as a result of the efforts
of Robert Broom (1866–1951) and his assistant John T. Robinson (1923–2001),
who collected a number of australopithecine specimens from cave sites in South
Africa during the 1930s and 1940s.50 Broom and Robinson argued forcefully that
the australopithecines were the direct ancestors of modern humans, but historians
have also noted the critical role that Le Gros Clark played in the reassessment of the
australopithecines.51
While South Africa continued to be an important centre of palaeoanthropological research through the remainder of the century, by the 1950s another centre of
research opened in East Africa. The excavations carried out at Olduvai Gorge by
Louis S. B. Leakey (1903–72) and Mary Leakey (1913–96) resulted in numerous
fossil hominids, including Zinjanthropus boisei in 1959 and Homo habilis in 1960,
as well as some of the oldest known artifacts, called Oldowan tools.52 The International Omo River Expedition, which began excavations in Ethiopia in 1967, and the
Koobi Fora Research Project, initiated by Richard Leakey (1944– ) in 1968 along
the shores of Lake Turkana in Kenya, mark the beginning of large-scale international
multidisciplinary research projects in palaeoanthropology. While historians have
written about the fossils found during the last half-century in East Africa and the
theoretical debates these discoveries have created,53 it is only recently that scholars
have begun to investigate the social and political factors that have risen to prominence
as palaeoanthropological research has become an expensive, logistically complex,
and politically and institutionally prestigious activity.54 The spectacular success of
large excavation projects is reflected in the work at Hadar where Donald Johanson
(1943– ) discovered Australopithecus afarensis (Lucy) and in the prodigious quantity
of fossils unearthed by the Middle Awash Research Project.55
INTERDISCIPLINARY NATURE OF MODERN PALAEOANTHROPOLOGY
Palaeoanthropology underwent a revolution during the second half of the twentieth
century but that revolution was not solely the result of the explosive increase in
the number and geographical distribution of different hominid species discovered,
although this is often the focus of histories of palaeoanthropology. New ideas in biology were imported into palaeoanthropology that changed the way human evolution
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MATTHEW R. GOODRUM
was understood and the way hominid fossils were classified. Population genetics and
the Modern Evolutionary Synthesis were applied to the problem of human evolution
beginning in the 1950s, while at about the same time cladistics was utilized to interpret
hominid phylogeny and the taxonomic status of individual hominid species.56 At the
end of the century, the theory of punctuated equilibria proposed by Stephen J. Gould
and Niles Eldridge began to influence the thinking of some palaeoanthropologists.
Historians need to investigate more thoroughly the impact competing biological
theories have played in explanations and models of human evolution, since there has
been a complex and important relationship between biology and palaeoanthropology
over the last century. The dramatic research using molecular biology to study the
phylogenetic relationship existing between humans and primates as well as between
different populations of humans is another area that has only begun to be explored
historically.57 This has played a role in the debate between the supporters of the Out
of Africa hypothesis and the Multiregional hypothesis, which is not simply a scientific
debate but one that possesses political and racial implications that hark back to the
debates between monogenists and polygenists.58
Developments in geology during the twentieth century have also contributed greatly
to the way palaeoanthropologists interpret the age of fossils based on stratigraphy, as
well as in the reconstruction of palaeoenvironments, yet little research exists on the
role of geologists in large palaeoanthropological expeditions or in the way geological theories have been utilized by palaeoanthropologists.59 More attention has been
given to the development of absolute dating methods, including dendrochronology
and radioactive dating methods such as carbon-14 and K-Ar dating.60 The ability to
date artifacts or geological deposits was a major breakthrough in prehistoric archaeology and palaeoanthropology, but few studies have examined the impact dating
methods had on specific models of human evolution or on the relationship between
anthropologists using this information and the specialists from physics or chemistry
who were responsible for producing the dates.
The picture of human origins research that emerges from the many books and
articles that examine its history over the last two centuries is one of a science that
is involved in a broad range of research problems. It emerged at the beginning of
the nineteenth century from numerous independent disciplines and in the course of
its history it has continued to make use of ideas and techniques drawn from fields
such as archaeology, geology, palaeontology, and biology. The process by which
palaeoanthropology established its own professional identity has still not been fully
investigated and we are only beginning to analyse the role that the natural and human
sciences have played in human origins research. Even less is known about the way that
philosophical, political, and religious factors have influenced human origins research.
The biblical account of human origins was modified or simply abandoned by many
researchers in the face of the new evidence accumulated by geologists, naturalists,
anthropologists and archaeologists. Some researchers, however, expended great
energy to harmonize recent scientific ideas with Christian doctrine, while religious
thinkers vigorously attempted to respond to what they perceived as a challenge to
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
· 349
traditional religion. The response of creationists to the idea of human evolution and
the evidence supporting it is one prominent example of the religious response to
palaeoanthropology, but Christian doctrine has influenced the discussion and investigation of human origins in many ways. The pre-Adamite theory reflects one way
that religion has played a role in theories of human evolution,61 but there are many
aspects of the interaction of religion and human origins research that still need to
be examined. In addition to religion, human origins research also possesses some
inherently political features to it as well. Theories of human evolution impact on the
concept of race and ethnicity. Political ideology has also employed human origins
research for social and political ends. The implications of European and American
researchers conducting excavations and removing hominid fossils from Asian and
African countries during and following the colonial period is another subject that
remains largely unexplored.62 Moreover, almost no studies have discussed the creation
of palaeoanthropological institutions in Asian and African nations or the success over
the last quarter-century in training researchers from these countries.
Historians, philosophers, and sociologists of science have a great deal to contribute
to a better understanding of the development of palaeoanthropology as a science and
to the impact it has had on modern culture and society. Professionals in the domain of
science studies have a sophisticated collection of tools and approaches that they can
apply to the history of human origins research, and these can supplement in important
ways the very useful research that has already been conducted by archaeologists and
palaeoanthropologists, who have examined the history of their discipline from the
perspective of their own pedagogical, intellectual, and professional concerns. We
will not only achieve a fuller understanding of why palaeoanthropology and related
disciplines developed in the way they have, but historians of science will also have
an opportunity to see the ways in which human origins research has had an impact on
other sciences. Equally important, palaeoanthropology may serve as a bridge that will
highlight the historical links that exist between some natural sciences and the human
sciences — such as comparative linguistics, physical and cultural anthropology, or
evolutionary psychology. The history of human origins research, like the history of
many other human sciences, is still largely in its infancy and there are huge opportunities for researchers to make significant contributions to this subject. The literature
discussed in this paper and the rough outline of the history of human origins research
and of the major research problems deserving attention will hopefully motivate a new
generation of scholars to examine the history of a science that is transforming our
understanding of human origins and of what it means to be a human being.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank Marianne Sommers and various reviewers for their helpful
suggestions on earlier versions of this paper.
350 ·
MATTHEW R. GOODRUM
REFERENCES
1. See Matt Cartmill, David Pilbeam and Glyn Isaac, “One hundred years of paleoanthropology”,
American scientist, lxxiv (1986), 410–20; R. A. Foley, “In the shadow of the modern synthesis?
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x (2001), 5–14; Winfried Henke, “Historical overview of palaeoanthropological research”, in W.
Henke and I. Tattersall (eds), Handbook of palaeoanthropology (New York, 2007), 1–45; Robert
Jurmain, “Human evolution: A century of research”, San José studies, viii (1982), 40–50; Ian
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2. Stanley Casson, The discovery of man: The story of the inquiry into human origins (New York, 1939);
Louis S. B. Leakey and V. M. Goodall, Unveiling man’s origins: Ten decades of thought about
human evolution (Cambridge, MA, 1969); Kenneth Oakley, “The problem of man’s antiquity:
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Sherwood L. Washburn and Ruth Moore, Ape into man: A study of human evolution (Boston,
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ancestors, transl. by James Cleugh (Boston, 1955).
3. A notable exception is Stephen G. Brush, The history of modern science: A guide to the second
scientific revolution, 1800–1950 (Ames, 1988). Peter J. Bowler and Iwan Rhys Morus, Making
modern science: A historical survey (Chicago, 2005), chap. 6, contains a very brief section on
human origins as well.
4. Some examples of this research are Matt Cartmill, “Human uniqueness and theoretical content
in paleoanthropology”, International journal of primatology, xi (1990), 173–92; Raymond
Corbey, The metaphysics of apes: Negotiating the animal–human boundary (Cambridge, 2005);
Raymond Corbey and Wil Roebroeks (eds), Studying human origins: Disciplinary history and
epistemology (Amsterdam, 2001); Marianne Sommer, Foremost in creation: Anthropomorphism
and anthropocentrism in National Geographic articles on non-human-primates (New York, 2000);
Wiktor Stoczkowski, “Les origines de l’homme: Epistémologie, narration et banalités collectives”,
Gradhiva, xi (1992), 67–80; Wiktor Stoczkowski, Anthropologie naïve anthropologie savante:
De l’origine de l’homme, de l’imagination et des idées reçues (Paris, 1994).
5. See Lori Hager, “Sex and gender in paleoanthropology”, in Women in human evolution, ed. by Lori
D. Hager (New York, 1997), 1–28, as well as the other articles in this volume; Diane GiffordGonzalez, “You can hide but you can’t run: Representation of women’s work in illustrations
of paleolithic life”, Visual anthropology review, ix (1993), 22–41; Stephanie Moser, “Gender
stereotyping in pictorial reconstructions of human origins”, in Women in archaeology: A feminist
critique, ed. by H. Ducros and L. Smith (Canberra, 1993), 75–92.
6. Stephanie Moser has published widely on these subjects. Her works include “The visual language
of archaeology: A case study of the Neanderthals”, Antiquity, lxvi (1992), 831–44; “Picturing
the prehistoric”, Metascience, iv (1993), 58–67; and “Visual representation in archaeology:
Depicting the missing-link in human origins”, in Picturing knowledge: Historical and
philosophical problems concerning the use of art in science, ed. by Brian S. Baigrie (Toronto,
1996), 184–214. See also Martin Rudwick, “Encounters with Adam, or at least the hyaenas:
Nineteenth-century visual representations of the deep past”, in History, humanity and evolution:
Essays for John C. Greene, ed. by James R. Moore (Cambridge, 1989), 231–51. This research
also intersects the issue of gender when depictions of prehistoric women are considered, as in
Melanie G. Wiber, Erect men, undulating women: The visual imagery of gender,“race” and
progress in reconstructive illustrations of human evolution (Waterloo, 1997). Other scholars have
analysed the development of archaeological illustration, technical drawing, and representations
of prehistoric archaeological sites by artists. On this see Serge Lewuillon, “Archaeological
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
· 351
illustrations: A new development in 19th century science”, Antiquity, lxxvi (2002), 223–34. A
general examination of the visual portrayal of human evolution can be found in Albert Ducros,
Jaqueline Ducros and Claude Blanckaert (eds), L’homme préhistorique: Images et imaginaire
(Paris, 2000); Sam Smiles and Stephanie Moser (eds), Envisioning the past: Archaeology and
the image (Malden, 2005); and Constance Areson Clark, God – or gorilla: Images of evolution
in the jazz age (Baltimore, 2008).
See particularly Misia Landau, Narratives of human evolution (New Haven, 1991). Related studies
include Abigail Hackett and Robin Dennell, “Neanderthals as fiction in archaeological narrative”,
Antiquity, lxxvii (2003), 816–27; and Bruno Latour and S. C. Strum, “Human social origins: Oh
please, tell us another story”, Journal of social and biological structures, ix (1986), 169–87.
A vast literature exists on all these subjects, but to see how these subjects relate to the history of human
origins research see Matthew R. Goodrum, “Prolegomenon to a history of paleoanthropology:
The study of human origins as a scientific enterprise. Part I. Antiquity to the Enlightenment”,
Evolutionary anthropology, xiii (2004), 172–80, and “Part II. Enlightenment to the twentieth
century”, ibid., 224–33, both of which contain extensive references to the relevant scholarly
works on these subjects.
On this see Kenneth Hudson, A social history of archaeology: The British experience (London, 1981);
Philippa Levine, The amateur and the professional: Antiquarians, historians and archaeologists
in Victorian England (Cambridge, 1986); Bruce G. Trigger, A history of archaeological thought
(Cambridge, 1989).
Several works address aspects of this story, see Marjorie Caygill, “Franks and the British Museum
— the cuckoo in the nest”, in A. W. Franks: Nineteenth-century collecting and the British Museum,
ed. by Marjorie Caygill and John Cherry (London, 1997), 51–114; William Chapman, “The Pitt
Rivers Collection 1874–1883: The chronicle of a gift horse”, Journal of the Anthropological
Society of Oxford, xiv (1983), 181–202; Jill Cook, “A curator’s curator: Franks and the Stone Age
collections”, in A. W. Franks, 115–29; John Mack, “Antiquities and the public: The expanding
museum, 1851–96”, in A. W. Franks, 34–50; Simon Naylor, “Collecting quoits: Field cultures
in the history of Cornish antiquarianism”, Cultural geographies, x (2003), 309–33; Michael
Petraglia and Richard Potts, The Old World Paleolithic and the development of a national
collection (Washington, DC, 2004).
See J. Briard, “Les ‘trois âges’ de C.-J. Thomsen à la chronologie de Déchelette”, in Le temps de
la préhistoire, ed. by J.-P. Mohen (Paris, 1989), i, 24–25; Bo Gräslund, “The background to
C. J. Thomsen’s Three Age System”, in Towards a history of archaeology, ed. by Glyn Daniel
(London, 1981), 45–50; Bo Gräslund, The birth of prehistoric chronology: Dating methods and
dating systems in nineteenth-century Scandinavian archaeology (Cambridge, 1987); Michael
A. Morse, “Craniology and the adoption of the Three-Age System in Britain”, Proceedings of
the Prehistoric Society, lxv (1999), 1–16; Judith Rodden, “The development of the Three Age
System: Archaeology’s first paradigm”, in Towards a history of archaeology, 51–68; Kolbjorn
Skaare, “Christian Jürgensen Thomsen — Grossereren som grunnla nordisk arkeologi”, Nordisk
Tidskrift för Vetenskap, Konst och Industri, lxiv (1988), 369–81.
The most thorough and insightful discussion can be found in Donald K. Grayson, The establishment
of human antiquity (New York, 1983). See also James R. Sackett, “Human antiquity and the
Old Stone Age: The nineteenth century background to paleoanthropology”, Evolutionary
anthropology, ix (2000), 37–49.
Several excellent works examine Buckland’s research and its impact. See S. Aldhouse-Green and P.
Pettitt, “Paviland cave: Contextualizing the ‘Red Lady’”, Antiquity, lxxii (1998), 756–72; F. J.
North, “Paviland cave, the ‘Red Lady’, the Deluge, and William Buckland”, Annals of science, v
(1942), 91–128; Marianne Sommer, “‘An amusing account of a cave in Wales’: William Buckland
(1784–1856) and the Red Lady of Paviland”, The British journal for the history of science, xxxvii
352 ·
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
MATTHEW R. GOODRUM
(2004), 53–74. For a broader social history of the discovery see Marianne Sommer, Bones and
ochre: The curious afterlife of the Red Lady of Paviland (Cambridge, MA, 2008). On Buckland’s
geological research see Nicolaas Rupke, The great chain of history: William Buckland and the
English school of geology (New York, 1983).
See M. H. Angelroth, “Philippe-Charles Schmerling (1791–1836)”, Bulletin de la Société Royale
Belge d’Anthropologie et de Préhistoire, lvi (1945), 44–57; G. Hamoir, “Le temps de latence des
découvertes, le cas Schmerling”, Bulletin des chercheurs de Wallonie, xxx (1990), 93–101; Liliane
Henderickx, “Philippe-Charles Schmerling (1790–1836) révèle l’antiquité de l’homme grâce aux
dépôts antédiluviens des grottes liégeoises”, Acta psychiatrica belgica, xciv (1994), 183–212;
Liliane Henderickx, “Les fouilles de la grotte de Remouchamps: Mise au point sur le rôle joué
par Philippe-Charles Schmerling (1790–1836)”, Revue d’archéologie et de paléontologie, viii
(1995), 41–51; Sigfried J. de Laet, “Philippe-Charles Schmerling (1791–1836)”, in Towards a
history of archaeology, ed. by Daniel (ref. 11), 112–19.
An exception is Grayson, The establishment of human antiquity (ref. 12).
Several early works in this tradition include Léon Aufrère, Essai sur les premières découvertes de
Boucher de Perthes et les origines de l’archéologie primitive (1838–1844) (Paris, 1936); Léon
Aufrère, “Figures des préhistoriens. 1. Boucher de Perthes”, Préhistoire, vii (1940), 1–134.
Claudine Cohen and Jean-Jacques Hublin, Boucher de Perthes (1788–1868): Les origines romantiques
de la préhistoire (Paris, 1989) is a particularly comprehensive and informative work. See also
Claude Blanckaert, “Actualités de Boucher de Perthes”, Gradhiva, ix (1990), 83–94; Jean-Yves
Pautrat, “Boucher de Perthes et Lamarck: Métaphysique et biologie”, in Jean-Baptiste Lamarck
1744–1829, ed. by Goulven Laurent (Paris, 1997), 573–86; Jean-Yves Pautrat, “Boucher de
Perthes: L’invention de l’homme antédiluvien, ou Comment devenir un auteur”, in Découverte
et ses récits en sciences humaines, ed. by Jacqueline Carroy and Nathalie Richard (Paris, 1998),
173–93; Nathalie Richard, “Le temps catastrophiste de Boucher de Perthes”, in Le temps de la
préhistoire, ed. by J.-P. Mohen (Paris, 1989), 8–9.
See Jacob W. Gruber, “Brixham cave and the antiquity of man”, in Context and meaning in cultural
anthropology, ed. by Melford E. Spiro (New York, 1965), 373–402; A. Bowdoin Van Riper, Men
among the mammoths: Victorian science and the discovery of human prehistory (Chicago, 1993);
Leonard G. Wilson, “Brixham cave and Sir Charles Lyell’s ... ‘The Antiquity of Man’: The roots
of Hugh Falconer’s attack on Lyell”, Archives of natural history, xxiii (1996), 79–97.
See W. F. Bynum, “Charles Lyell’s Antiquity of Man and its critics”, Journal of the history of biology,
xvii (1984), 153–87; and Claudine Cohen, “Charles Lyell and the evidences of the antiquity of
man”, in Lyell: The past is key to the present, ed. by Derek J. Blundell and Andrew C. Scott
(London, 1998), 83–93.
Alice Beck Kehoe, “The invention of prehistory”, Current anthropology, xxxii (1991), 467–76; Alice
Beck Kehoe, “Recognizing the foundation of prehistory: Daniel Wilson, Robert Chambers, and
John Lubbock”, in Assembling the past: Studies in the professionalization of archaeology, ed.
by Mary Beth Emmerichs and Alice B. Kehoe (Albuquerque, 1999), 53–68. On Wilson also see
A. B. McKillop, “Evolution, ethnology, and poetic fancy: Sir Daniel Wilson and mid-Victorian
science”, in Science, pseudo-science and society, ed. by Marsha P. Hanen, Margaret J. Osler and
Robert G. Weyant (Waterloo, 1980), 193–214.
See Christopher Chippindale, “The invention of words for the idea of ‘prehistory’”, Proceedings of the
Prehistoric Society, liv (1988), 304–14; Norman Clermont and Philip E. L. Smith, “Prehistoric,
prehistory, prehistorian … who invented the terms?”, Antiquity, lxiv (1990), 97–102; Noël Coye,
“L’émergence du concept de temps préhistorique”, in La préhistoire en France, musées, écoles de
fouilles, associations ... du XIX siècle à nos jours, ed. by A. Duval (Paris, 1992), 139–48; Glynn
Daniel and Colin Renfrew, The idea of prehistory, 2nd edn (Edinburgh, 1988).
For some works that address aspects of this subject see Nathalie Richard, “L’institutionalisation de la
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
· 353
préhistoire”, in Les débuts des sciences de l’homme, ed. by B.-P. Lécuyer and B. Matalon (Paris,
1992), 189–207; Manuel Farinha dos Santos, “Estudos de pre-historia em Portugale de 1850 a
1880”, Anais da Academia Portuguesa da História, xxvi (1980), 251–97; Gordon R. Willey and
Jeremy A. Sabloff, A history of American archaeology (San Francisco, 1974).
Goulven Laurent, “Edouard Lartet (1801–1871) et la paléontologie humaine”, Bulletin de la Société
Préhistorique Française, xc (1993), 22–30.
See Pascal Beyls, Gabriel de Mortillet géologue, préhistorien (Grenoble, 1999); Jean-Yves Pautrat,
“La Préhistorique de G. de Mortillet: Un histoire géologique de l’homme”, Bulletin de la Société
Préhistorique Française, xc (1993), 50–59; Nathalie Richard, “Le temps transformiste de Gabriel
de Mortillet”, in Le temps de la préhistoire, ed. by J.-P. Mohen (Paris, 1989), 10–11; Nathalie
Richard, “La revue L’Homme de Gabriel de Mortillet: Anthropologie et politique au début de
la troisième république”, Bulletin et mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris, n.s., i
(1989), 231–55; Nathalie Richard, “L’archéologie: Démarches savantes et conceptions naïves.
L’anthropopithèque de G. De Mortillet, le débat sur l’ancêtre de l’homme au XIXe siècle”, Les
nouvelles de l’archéologie, xliv (1991), 23–29.
See Raf de Bont, “The creation of prehistoric man: Aimé Rutot and the eolith controversy, 1900–1920”,
Isis, xciv (2003), 604–30; Anne O’Connor, “Geology, archaeology, and ‘the raging vortex of the
“eolith” controversy’”, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, cxiv (2003), 255–62; Anne
O’Connor, “Samuel Hazzledine Warren and the construction of a chronological framework for
the British Quaternary in the early twentieth century”, Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association,
cxvi (2005), 1–12; Donald K. Grayson, “Eoliths, archaeological ambiguity, and the generation
of ‘middle range’ research”, in American archaeology past and future: A celebration of the
Society for American Archaeology 1935–1985, ed. by D. Meltzer, D. Fowler and J. Sabloff
(Washington, DC, 1986), 77–133; Marianne Sommer, “Eoliths as evidence for human origins?
— the British context”, Journal for the history and philosophy of the life sciences, xxvi (2004),
209–41; Frank Spencer, “Prologue to a scientific forgery: The British eolithic movement from
Abbeville to Piltdown”, in Bones, bodies, behavior: Essays on biological anthropology, ed. by
George Stocking (Madison, 1988), 84–116.
A notable exception is Margaret W. Conkey, “Mobilizing ideologies: Paleolithic ‘art,’ gender trouble,
and thinking about alternatives”, in Women in human evolution, ed. by Lori D. Hager (New York,
1997), 172–207, which applies ideas from recent studies of gender and science to examine the
way prehistoric art has been interpreted. See also Claudine Cohen, La femme des origines: Images
de la femme dans la préhistoire occidentale (Paris, 2003).
For the impact of Lamarck’s theory on anthropology and how he addressed the question of human
origins see Claude Blanckaert, “L’anthropologie lamarckienne à la fin du XIXe siècle: Matérialisme
scientifique et mésologie sociale”, in Jean-Baptiste Lamarck 1744–1829, ed. by Goulven Laurent
(Paris, 1997), 611–29; Goulven Laurent, “Idées sur l’origine de l’homme en France de 1800 à
1871 entre Lamarck et Darwin”, Bulletin et mémoires de la Société d’Anthropologie de Paris,
n.s., i (1989), 105–29; Wiktor Stoczkowski, “Lamarck, l’homme et le singe”, in Jean-Baptiste
Lamarck 1744–1829, ed. by Goulven Laurent (Paris, 1997), 447–66.
Analysis of Darwin’s impact on human origins research in the nineteenth century can be found in
Carl J. Bajema, “Charles Darwin on man in the first edition of the Origin of Species”, Journal
of the history of biology, xxi (1988), 403–10; Nelio M. V. Bizzo, “Darwin on man in the Origin
of Species: Further factors considered”, Journal of the history of biology, xxv (1992), 137–47;
Loren C. Eiseley, Darwin’s century: Evolution and the men who discovered it (Garden City, 1958);
Joel S. Schwartz, “Darwin, Wallace, and the Descent of Man”, Journal of the history of biology,
xvii (1984), 271–89. On Charles Lyell’s response to the idea of human evolution see Michael J.
Bartholomew, “Lyell and evolution: An account of Lyell’s response to the prospect of an evolutionary
ancestry for man”, The British journal for the history of science, vi (1973), 261–303.
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MATTHEW R. GOODRUM
29. See E. Arquiola, “Darwinism in the Société d’Anthropologie de Paris”, Clio medica, xiv (1980),
119–28; J. Harey, “Evolutionism transformed: Positivists and materialists in the Société
d’Anthropologie de Paris from the Second Empire to Third Republic”, in The wider domain
of evolutionary thought, ed. by David Oldroyd and I. Langham (Dordrecht, 1983), 289–310;
Idus Murphree, “The evolutionary anthropologists: The progress of mankind. The concepts of
progress and culture in the thought of John Lubbock, Edward B. Tylor, and Lewis H. Morgan”,
Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, cv (1961), 265–300; George W. Stocking,
Victorian anthropology (New York, 1987).
30. See Mark Bowden, Pitt Rivers: The life and archaeological work of Lieutenant-General Augustus
Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers, DCL, FRS, FSA (Cambridge, 1991); and M. W. Thompson, General
Pitt-Rivers: Evolution and archaeology in the nineteenth century (Bradford-on-Avon, 1977).
31. For historical examinations of the role of human phylogenies see Günther Bergner, “Geschichte der
menschlichen Phylogenetik seit dem 1900 Jahrhundert”, in Menschliche Abstammungslehre:
Fortschritte der Anthropogenie 1863–1964, ed. by Gerhard Heberer (Stuttgart, 1965), 20–55; C.
Loring Brace, “Tales of the phylogenetic woods: The evolution and significance of evolutionary
trees”, American journal of physical anthropology, lvi (1981), 411–29; Richard G. Delisle,
Debating humankind’s place in nature 1860–2000: The nature of paleoanthropology (Upper
Saddle River, 2007); Goulven Laurent, “Idées sur l’origine animale de l’homme en France
au XIXe siècle”, in Ape, man, apeman: Changing views since 1600, ed. by R. Corbey and B.
Theunissen (Leiden, 1995), 158–71.
32. Some general surveys of this sort include John Reader, Missing links: The hunt for earliest man
(Boston, 1981); Ian Tattersall, The fossil trail: How we know what we think we know about
human evolution (Oxford, 1995); Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman, The Neandertals: Changing
the image of mankind (New York, 1993).
33. See particularly the following works by Ursula Zängl-Kumpf: Hermann Schaaffhausen (1816–1893):
Die Entwicklung einer neuen physischen Anthropologie im 19. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am
Main, 1990); “Hermann Schaaffhausen (1816–1893) und die frühe Geschichte des Faches
Anthropologie”, Anthropologischer Anzeiger, l (1992), 335–54; “Die anthropologische Sammlung
Hermann Schaaffhausens — Inhalt und Schicksal”, Medizinhistorisches Journal, xxvii (1992),
187–97. On Rudolf Virchow’s contribution to prehistoric anthropology and the Neanderthal
debate see Christian Andree, Virchow als Prähistoriker (2 vols, Cologne, 1976).
34. See C. Loring Brace, “The fate of the ‘classic’ Neanderthals: A consideration of hominid catastrophism”,
Current anthropology, v (1964), 3–43; Frank Spencer, “The Neandertals and their evolutionary
significance: A brief historical survey”, in Origins of modern humans: A world survey of the
fossil evidence, ed. by Fred H. Smith and Frank Spencer (New York, 1984), 1–49; Marianne
Sommer, “The Neanderthals”, in Icons of evolution: An encyclopedia of people, evidence, and
controversies, ed. by Brian Regal (Westport, 2007), 139–66; Erik Trinkaus, “Neandertals: Images
of ourselves”, Evolutionary anthropology, i (1993), 194–201; and Erik Trinkaus and Pat Shipman,
The Neandertals: Changing the image of mankind (New York, 1993).
35. On the discovery of the Cro-Magnon fossils see J. Bouchud, “Remarques sur les fouilles de L.
Lartet à l’abri de Cro-Magnon (Dordogne)”, Bulletin de la Société d’Études et de Recherches
Préhistoriques, xv (1965), 28–36.
36. An especially good study is Bert Theunissen, Eugène Dubois and the ape-man from Java: The history
of the first missing link and its discoverer (Dordrecht, 1989). See also Richard E. Leakey and L.
Jan Slikkerveer, Man-ape ape-man: The quest for human’s place in nature and Dubois’ “missing
link” (Leiden, 1993); F. Clark Howell, “Thoughts on Eugène Dubois and the ‘Pithecanthropus’
saga”, in 100 years of Pithecanthropus: The Homo erectus problem, ed. by Jens Lorenz Franzen
(Frankfurt am Main, 1994), 11–20; Mary Bouquet, Man-ape ape-man: Pithecanthropus in het
Pesthuis. Tentoonstelling ter gelegenheid van de ontdekking van Pithecanthropus erectus door
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
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Eugène Dubois in 1893 (Leiden, 1993). On the legacy of Dubois see Mary Bouquet, “Exhibiting
knowledge: The trees of Dubois, Haeckel, Jesse and Rivers at the Pithecanthropus Centennial
Exhibition”, in Shifting contexts: Transformations in anthropological knowledge, ed. by M.
Strathern (New York, 1995), 31–55; and Mary Bouquet, “Strangers in paradise: An encounter
with fossil man at the Dutch Museum of Natural History”, in The politics of display: Museums,
science, and culture, ed. by Sharon Macdonald (New York, 1998), 159–72.
On this see A. Leguebe, “Importance des découvertes de Néandertaliens en Belgique pour le
développement de la paléontologie humaine”, Bulletin de la Société Royale Belge d’Anthropologie
et de Préhistoire, xcvii (1986), 13–31.
For a general discussion of this see Bruno Albarello, L’affaire de l’homme de la Chapelle-aux-Saints
(Le Loubanel, 1987); Michael Hammond, “The expulsion of the Neanderthals from human
ancestry: Marcellin Boule and the social context of scientific research”, Social studies of science,
xii (1982), 1–36; Goulven Laurent, “Les idées sur l’origine de l’homme au début du XXe siècle:
Les conceptions de Marcellin Boule (1861–1942)”, in Nature, histoire, société: Essais en
hommage à Jacques Roger, ed. by Claude Blanckaert (Paris, 1995), 433–42. For a discussion of
the social context that shaped Boule’s work on the Neanderthals see Marianne Sommer, “Mirror,
mirror on the wall: Neanderthal as image and ‘distortion’ in early 20th-century French science
and press”, Social studies of science, xxxvi (2006), 207–40; and David Van Reybrouck, “Boule’s
error: On the social context of scientific knowledge”, Antiquity, lxxvi (2002), 158–64.
Unfortunately the most comprehensive works are not in English. For a more biographical account
see Jakov Radovčić, Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger i krapinski pračovjek: Počeci suvremene
paleoantropologije (Zagreb, 1988); and Mirko Malez, Dragutin Gorjanović-Kramberger (1856–
1936) (Zagreb, 1987). For his broader impact see Winfried Henke, “Gorjanović-Kramberger’s
research on Krapina: Its impact on paleoanthropology in Germany”, Periodicum biologorum,
cviii (2006), 239–52; and Trinkhaus and Shipman, The Neanderthals (ref. 32), chap. 5.
The quality of this scholarship varies considerably. Some of the better works in this genre include
Charles Blinderman, The Piltdown inquest (Buffalo, 1986); Norman Clermont, “On the Piltdown
joker and accomplice: A French connection?”, Current anthropology, xxxiii (1992), 587–9; Peter
Costello, “The Piltdown hoax reconsidered”, Antiquity, lix (1985), 167–73; Ronald W. Millar,
The Piltdown men (New York, 1972); Guy Van Esbroeck, Pleine lumière sur l’imposture de
Piltdown (Paris, 1972); John E. Walsh, Unraveling Piltdown: The science fraud of the century and
its solution (New York, 1996); John Winslow and Alfred Meyer, “The perpetrator at Piltdown”,
Science, lxxxiii (1983), 32–43.
A comprehensive and particularly insightful account can be found in Frank Spencer, Piltdown: A
scientific forgery (New York, 1990). Also see Michael Hammond, “A framework of plausibility
for an anthropological forgery: The Piltdown case”, Anthropology, iii (1979), 47–58; John
H. Langdon, “Misinterpreting Piltdown”, Current anthropology, xxxii (1991), 627–31; Ian
Langham, “Talgai and Piltdown: The common context”, Artefact, iii (1978), 181–224; Phillip
V. Tobias, “Piltdown: An appraisal of the case against Sir Arthur Keith”, Current anthropology,
xxxiii (1992), 243–93.
On this see Geoffrey Ainsworth Harrison, “J. S. Weiner and the exposure of the Piltdown forgery”,
Antiquity, lvii (1983), 46–48.
See Frank Spencer and F. H. Smith, “The significance of Ales Hrdlicka’s ‘Neanderthal phase of
man’: A historical and current assessment”, American journal of physical anthropology, lvi
(1981), 435–59.
Brief discussions of the Pre-sapiens theory are scattered through a number of general histories (see
ref. 27), but also see the discussion in Milford Wolpoff, “Vertsszöllös and the presapiens theory”,
American journal of physical anthropology, xxxv (1971), 209–16.
A prominent proponent of an orthogenetic theory of human evolution was the American palaeontologist
356 ·
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
MATTHEW R. GOODRUM
Henry Fairfield Osborn. See Brian Regal, Henry Fairfield Osborn: Race and the search for the
origins of man (Burlington, 2002); Ronald Rainger, An agenda for antiquity: Henry Fairfield
Osborn & vertebrate paleontology at the American Museum of Natural History, 1890–1935
(Tuscaloosa, 1991); and Charlotte M. Porter, “The rise of Parnassus: Henry Fairfield Osborn
and the Hall of the Age of Man”, Museum studies journal, i (1983), 26–34.
On the relationship between evolution theory and human origins research see Peter J. Bowler,
Theories of human evolution: A century of debate, 1844–1944 (Baltimore, 1986); Peter J. Bowler,
“Holding your head up high: Degeneration and orthogenesis in theories of human evolution”, in
History, humanity and evolution, ed. by Moore (ref. 6), 329–53; Peter J. Bowler, “The geography
of extinction: Biogeography and the expulsion of ‘ape men’ from human ancestry in the early
twentieth century”, in Ape, man, apeman, ed. by Corbey and Theunissen (ref. 31), 185–93.
For a general discussion see Robin Dennell, “From Sangiran to Olduvai, 1937–1960: The quest for
‘centres’ of hominid origins in Asia and Africa”, in Studying human origins: Disciplinary history
and epistemology, ed. by Raymond Corbey and Wil Roebroeks (Amsterdam, 2001), 45–66.
See Lanpo Jia and Weiwen Huang, The story of Peking Man: From archaeology to mystery, transl. by
Zhiqi Yin (New York, 1990); James P. McCormick, “Dragon bones and drugstores: The interaction
of pharmacy and paleontology in the search for early man in China”, Pharmacy in history, xxiii
(1981), 55–70; Rukang Wu and Shenglong Lin, “Chinese palaeoanthropology: Retrospect and
prospect”, in Palaeoanthropology and Palaeolithic archaeology in the People’s Republic of
China, ed. by Rukang Wu and John W. Olsen (New York, 1985), 1–27; Ming Zhen Zhou and
Chuan Kun Ho, “History of the dating of Homo erectus at Zhoukoudian”, Geological Society of
America special paper no. 242 (1990), 69–74. On the interrelationship of palaeoanthropology and
politics see Barry Sautman, “Peking Man and the politics of paleoanthropological nationalism
in China”, Journal of Asian studies, lx (2001), 95–124.
See Charles A. Reed, “A short history of the discovery and early study of the Australopithecines:
The first find to the death of Robert Broom (1924–1951)”, in Hominid origins: Inquiries past
and present, ed. by Kathleen J. Reichs (Washington, DC, 1983), 1–77; Phillip V. Tobias, Dart,
Taung, and the “missing link”: An essay on the life and work of Raymond Dart (Johannesburg,
1984); Phillip V. Tobias, “Ape-like Australopithecus after seventy years: Was it a hominid?”,
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, iv (1998), 282–308.
See Phillip V. Tobias, “The South African early fossil hominids and John Talbot Robinson (1923–
2001)”, Journal of human evolution, xliii (2002), 563–76.
On Robinson and Clark’s contributions to palaeoanthropology see B. A. Sigmon, “Theoretical models
and research directions in human evolution: The influence of W. E. Le Gros Clark and J. T.
Robinson”, Human evolution, vii (1992), 61–62.
Numerous biographies and books discuss the Leakeys’ research and the impact of their discoveries
and theories. See particularly Sonia Cole, Leakey’s luck: The life of Louis Seymour Bazett Leakey,
1903–1972 (London, 1975); and Virginia Morell, Ancestral passions: The Leakey family and
the quest for humankind’s beginnings (New York, 1995). On specific aspects of their research
see A. C. Walker, “Louis Leakey, John Napier and the history of Proconsul”, Journal of human
evolution, xxii (1992), 245–54; and Phillip V. Tobias, “Premature discoveries in science, with
special reference to ‘Australopithecus’ and ‘Homo habilis’”, Proceedings of the American
Philosophical Society, cxl (1996), 49–64.
See particularly Roger Lewin, Bones of contention: Controversies in the search for human origins
(New York, 1987).
Some examples of this research include John M. Harris, Meave G. Leakey and Francis H. Brown, “A
brief history of research at Koobi Fora, northern Kenya”, Ethnohistory, liii (2006), 35–69; Nathan
Schlanger, “Making the past for South Africa’s future: The prehistory of Field-Marshal Smuts
(1920s–1940s)”, Antiquity, lxxvi (2002), 200–9; Nick Shepherd, “The politics of archaeology
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ORIGINS RESEARCH
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in Africa ,” Annual review of anthropology, xxxi (2002), 189–209.
55. For the history of palaeoanthropological research in East Africa at the end of the twentieth century
see Ann Gibbons, The first human: The race to discover our earliest ancestors (New York, 2006).
See also N. Minugh-Purvis, “The modern human origins controversy: 1984–1994”, Evolutionary
anthropology, iv (1995), 140–7.
56. See Richard Delisle, “Human palaeontology and the evolutionary synthesis during the decade
1950–1960”, in Ape, man, apeman, ed. by Corbey and Theunissen (ref. 31), 217–28; and Richard
Delisle, “Adaptationism versus cladism in human evolution studies”, in Studying human origins:
Disciplinary history and epistemology, ed. by Raymond Corbey and Wil Roebroeks (Amsterdam,
2001), 107–21.
57. Jonathan Marks has published three interesting papers on this subject: “Blood will tell (won’t it?): A
century of molecular discourse in anthropological systematics”, American journal of physical
anthropology, xciv (1994), 59–79; “The legacy of serological studies in American physical
anthropology”, History and philosophy of the life sciences, xviii (1996), 345–62; and “Molecular
anthropology in retrospect and prospect”, in Contemporary issues in human evolution, ed. by E.
Meikle, F. C. Howell and N. G. Jablonski (San Francisco, 1996), 167–86.
58. Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari, Race and human evolution (New York, 1997) provides some
historical background on this issue.
59. For one example see Richard L. Hay, “Olduvai Gorge: A case history in the interpretation of hominid
paleoenvironments in East Africa”, Geological Society of America special paper no. 242 (1990),
23–37.
60. See M. J. Aitken, Science-based dating in archaeology (London, 1990); Lawrence Badash, “The
origin of radioactive dating techniques”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,
cxii (1968), 158–69; R. Burleigh, “W. F. Libby and the development of radiocarbon dating”,
Antiquity, lv (1981), 96–98; Matthew R. Goodrum and Cora Olson, “The quest for an absolute
chronology in human prehistory: Chemists, anthropologists, and the fluorine dating technique
in paleoanthropology”, The British journal for the history of science, xlii (2009), 95–114; Greg
Marlowe, “W. F. Libby and the archaeologist, 1946–1948”, Radiocarbon, xxii (1980), 1005–14;
Stephen E. Nash, Time, trees, and prehistory: Tree-ring dating and the development of North
American archaeology, 1914–1950 (Salt Lake City, 1999); R. E. Taylor, “The beginnings of
radiocarbon dating in American Antiquity: A historical perspective”, American antiquity, l
(1985), 309–25.
61. David Livingstone has published several insightful works on this subject including The Preadamite
theory and the marriage of science and religion (Philadelphia, 1992) and Adam’s ancestors:
Race, religion, and the politics of human origins (Baltimore, 2008).
62. Some of these issues are raised in Robin Dennell, “Progressive gradualism, imperialism, and academic
fashion: Lower Paleolithic archaeology in the 20th century”, Antiquity, lxiv (1990), 549–58.