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 Corporate Bodies

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

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

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