archaeology and palaeoanthropology 9
A R C H A E O L O G Y A N D P A L A E O A N T H R O P O L O G Y
archaeology was immense because the a reflection of the importance of racial clas-
digging was done literally with shovels and sification of people to both scholars and to
context was rarely recorded. Péringuey and the public at large at that time. This focus
FitzSimons both offered cash to purchase on race as the most important aspect of the
the new discovery at Boskop; FitzSimons study of archaeological humans did not sig-
offered the most money, so the skull went
nificantly change until the work of Ronald
to Port Elizabeth, but Péringuey met with
Singer and Phillip Tobias in the 1950s and
FitzSimons and negotiated for the first de-
1960s.
scription to be done by the assistant direc-
tor of the South African Museum, the young
Although the Boskop discovery had trig-
geologist Sydney Haughton.
gered much interest in physical anthropol-
ogy in South Africa, it was the discovery of
the Taung child as announced by Raymond
Boskop had more influence than it should
Dart in February 1925 that brought South
have had because of the notoriety created
Africa onto the world stage of human ori-
by the competition between Péringuey and
gins studies. The face, mandible and cra-
FitzSimons. It was interesting in anatomy,
nial endocast, encased in a block of breccia
but undated and with very little archaeo-
(solidified ancient cave fill), were brought
logical context, however, the assumed an-
to Dart in late-1924 from the Buxton lime
tiquity made it important to the museums.
mine at Taung, just north of Kimberley in the
When FitzSimons discovered similar large,
then Cape province. He spent several weeks
long-headed crania in the deeper levels
carefully exposing the tiny skull and in the
from caves in the Tsitsikamma Mountains
process recognised a set of anatomical fea-
on the south Cape coast, he sent them to
tures that marked it as human-like rather
Raymond Dart, the new professor of ana-
than ape-like. He gave the name Australo-
tomy at Wits, for analysis. The Boskop-like
pithecus africanus to his newly discovered
features of these few individuals suggested
specimen. Dart’s published description in
to Dart that a whole population of large-
Nature early in 1925 was not met with ap-
headed San must have existed in prehis-
proval from the palaeoanthropological
toric times. Dart created the ‘Boskop type’
community and his find was discounted by
in order to represent this population.
most authorities on the subject. For over a
decade, the Taung child remained the only
By the 1920s and early 1930s, South African
indication of very ancient human remains in
physical anthropology had already divided Africa until new specimens were recovered
itself into distinct ‘schools’ at the medical by Robert Broom from Kromdraai, Sterkfon-
schools at Wits and UCT and at the National tein and Swartkrans, all ancient filled caves
Museum in Bloemfontein. The passion for in the Sterkfontein valley north-west of Jo-
‘types’ of modern and ancient humans was hannesburg. The accumulating evidence fi-
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