Bones to Pick - The Fossil Chronicles - page 186

Indonesia and Australia. These search times were surprisingly short,
given the cliché that looking for our ancestors is like seeking the pro-
verbial needle in a haystack. The efficiency of these discoveries was
due to several factors. Dubois, Dart, and Morwood were deeply curi-
ous about nature and had the scientific training to figure out where in
the world to search for our prehistoric relatives. The discoverers were
also ambitious, intensely focused on their goals, and able to acquire the
resources to achieve them.
Even before they published their announcements, Dubois and Dart
were certain that they had discovered missing links that were fated to
change the scientific thinking about human evolution. Both discov-
eries were from bipedal hominins that appeared primitive compared
with modern humans ( Australopithecus more so than Pithecanthropus ) but
looked advanced compared with modern apes ( Pithecanthropus more so
than Australopithecus ). For this reason, Dart called the more primitive-
looking Australopithecus a man-ape, whereas Pithecanthropus was known
as an ape-man. Dubois and Dart realized that their discoveries con-
firmed Darwin's thinking about human origins, but in different ways.
Dubois had dubbed his find Pithecanthropus erectus (literally, “ape-man
upright”) to underscore the fact that upright walking had evolved before
the brain increased to its modern size —just as Darwin had suggested . 4
He also concluded that because Pithecanthropus came from Java, the East
Indies was the “cradle of mankind. ” 5 Over 30 years later, Dart named
his discovery Australopithecus africanus (“southern ape from Africa”) in
support of Darwin's idea that humans had originated in Africa rather
than Asia . 6 Dubois and Dart later wrote about feeling a sense of destiny
at the time of their finds, and each eventually became depressed when
the significance of his discovery was not recognized by fellow scientists.
Other interesting parallels exist. Dubois and Dart took their fossils
on tour to try to persuade colleagues of their importance, and each
specimen was briefly lost and recovered once while on tour. Dubois left
a suitcase containing the remains of Pithecanthropus underneath a table
in a Paris café in 1895; Dart's wife, Dora, left a box containing Taung