Person
Dart, Raymond Arthur (1893 - 1988)
- Born
- 4 February 1893
Toowong, Queenland, Australia - Died
- 22 November 1988
Johannesburg, South Africa - Occupation
- Anatomist and Anthropologist
Summary
Raymond Dart was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist who spent most of his working life in South Africa. He is best-known for his elucidation in 1924 of the first fossil found of Australopithecus africanus, the fossil being the skull of an infant discovered at Taungs (later Taung) north of Kimberley, South Africa. Dart's assessment was that this skull was a missing link between apes and humans, publishing his findings in Nature in 1925. His work, after being ridiculed for over 20 years, was finally accepted. Dart was embroiled in further controversy over his theories, published in an extended series of articles between 1949 and 1965, on the adaptation of animal bones by ape-men to kill animals for eating. Dart was for 35 years Professor of Anatomy at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg where he was instrumental in establishing the Faculty of Medicine and served as Dean for many years.
Details
Chronology
- 1914
- Education - BSc, University of Queensland
- 1916
- Education - MSc, University of Queensland
- 1917
- Education - ChM, MB, University of Sydney
- 1917
- Career position - Medical Officer, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, Sydney
- 1918 - 1919
- Military service - Captain in the Australian Army Medical Corps
- 1919
- Career position - Senior demonstrator in anatomy, University College, London
- 1920 - 1921
- Award - Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, Washington University, St Louis, Missouri, U.S.A.
- 1921
- Career position - Lecturer, University College, London
- January 1923 - 1958
- Career position - Professor of Anatomy, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 1925 - 1943
- Career position - Dean, Faculty of Medicine, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 1927
- Education - MD, University of Sydney
- 1930 - 1958
- Award - Fellow, Royal Society of South Africa
- 1956
- Award - Honorary Doctorate, Univof Natal, South Africa
- 1958 -
- Career position - Emeritus Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 1958
- Life event - Retired
- 1965
- Award - Honorary Doctorate, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
- 1966 - 1986
- Career position - Lecturer and researcher (six months per year), Institutes for the Achievement of Human Potential, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.A.
Related entries
Published resources
Books
- Dart, Raymond A. and Craig, Dennis, Adventures with the missing link (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1959), 255 pp. Details
- Wheelhouse, Frances and Smithford, Kathaleen S., Dart: scientist and man of grit (Sydney: Transpareon Press, 2001), 361 pp. Details
Book Sections
- Tobias, Phillip V., 'Dart, Raymond Thomas (1893-1988), anatomist and anthropologist' in Australian dictionary of biography, volume 17: 1981 - 1990 A-K, Diane Langmore, ed. (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2007), pp. 302-303. http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/dart-raymond-arthur-12402. Details
Journal Articles
- Dart, R. A., 'Australopithecus africanus: the man-ape of South Africa', Nature, 115 (2884) (1925), 195-9. Details
- Dart, R. A., 'Recollections of a reluctant anthropologist', Journal of human evolution, 2 (1973), 417-27. Details
- Derricort, Robin, 'The enigma of Raymond Dart', International journal of African historical studies, 42 (2) (2009), 257-82. Details
- Geffen, Laurie and Spencer, Nick J., 'Early Australian neuroscientists and the tyranny of distance', Journal of the history of the neurosciences, 33 (1) (2024), 57-72. https://doi.org/10.1080/0964704X.2023.2232824. Details
- Strkalj,, G. and Tobias, P. V., 'Raymond Dart as a pioneering primatologist', HOMO: journal of comparative human biology, 59 (2008), 271-86. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jchb.2008.06.002. Details
- Tobias, P. V., ' In memory of Raymond Arthur Dart FRSSAf', Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa, 48 (1) (1992), 183-5. https://doi.org/10.1080/00359199209520261. Details
Helen Cohn
Created: 8 August 2024