NOTED SCIENTIST

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27275, 29 December 1949, Page 4

NOTED SCIENTIST

FINDER OF TAUNGS SKULL BRIEF VISIT TO DOMINION Dr Raymond A. Dart, professor of anatomy at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and formerly for 16 years dean of the faculty of medicine there, arrived at Auckland by air from America on Sunday. At the invitation of the Viking Fund of New York, Dr Dart took to an American congress of anthropologists what is known as the Taungs skull and other fossil remains of the South African man-like apes, for whose discovery he was responsible. After demonstrating these to the congress in August and September, he delivered a series of lectures for the Lowell Institute in Boston. He was given a grant by the Rockefeller Foundation, of which he was one of the first two fellows to be appointed from Great Britain in 1920-21, and travelled extensively in Canada, the United States and Mexico, visiting medical and anthropological schools and lecturing in universities.

The creatures to which the Taungs skull gave scientists the key were described by Dr Dart as existing probably more than 1,000.000 years ago and being among the earliest stages in the evolution of mankind. Their brains were little, if at all, bigger than those of living apes, but they had teeth like men, walked erect and lived in caves out in the open country away from forests. They hunted wild game and killed them with bone clubs and antelope jaws, and possibly had some knowledge of the use of fire.

Other discoveries had been made about these creatures and investigations were being carried out by his university in the valley where the last fossil remains were found, said Dr Dart.