Abstract
DR. ROBERT BROOM continues to provide sensational news from South Africa for anthropologist and palaeontologist. In another column of this issue (see p. 897) he reports further finds of relics of South African fossil anthropoids, which, if anything, surpass in interest the remarkable discoveries he has already recorded recently in these columns. From the site on which was found the Kromdraai skull, he has now recovered three bones, or parts of bones, the right humerus, the ulna and one of the toe-phalanges of Paranthropus, which, as his nomenclature indicates, he places, on the evidence of the skull, very near the line of man. The new evidence fully bears out his conclusion, for as he states, these bones, which on the balance of probabilities must be associated with the skull, are “nearly human”. Further, and this is the most interesting feature of the discovery, they, and more especially the toe bone, must be interpreted as pointing to Paranthropus having walked erect. In other words, the upper limbs of this type were already freed from the duties of locomotion to undertake those functions which were to play a predominant part in forwarding the development of the specific characters of the brain of Homo sapiens.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Anthropoid Evolution in South Africa. Nature 142, 908 (1938). https://doi.org/10.1038/142908a0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/142908a0