l82 FROM FISH TO PHILOSOPHER 



for example, as Homo sapiens) . Thus the genus Australo- 

 pithecus is now taken to include both Broom's Plesian- 

 thropus {plesios = near; anthropos = man) and Robin- 

 son's Telanthropus {teleos = perfect; anthropos = man), 

 so that one is tempted to wonder if Dart might not 

 have done better to combine Australo (southern) with 

 anthropos (man) rather than with pithecus (ape). Aus- 

 tralopithecus was truly hominid, perhaps the earhest 

 truly hominid (if a sharp line can be drawn), in that in 

 many respects he qualifies as the precursor of all later 

 hominid forms. His skull, pelvis, and femur show that 

 he walked upright in the bipedal manner, and it may be 

 presumed that he used the forefeet as hands. There is 

 some evidence that he knew the use of fire and even a 

 rough stone weapon, but here the evidence ends. But 

 anatomically he affords the starting point for the almost 

 insensible succession of the later hominids. Pithe- 

 canthropus (which includes P. erectus of Java, Sinan- 

 thropus or F. pekinensis of China, Atlanthropus of 

 Algeria, and possibly Heidelberg man), this genus ex- 

 tending back 200,000-500,000 years; then Pre-Mouste- 

 rian man (100,000-200,000 years). Early Mousterian 

 man (50,000-100,000 years); then Homo neanderthal- 

 ensis (ca. 50,000 years) and modem man Homo sapiens 

 (ca. 40,000 years). Extreme taxonomic reduction would 

 put Mousterian man and Neanderthal in the genus 

 Homo, if not in the species sapiens. 



Otherwise Australopithecus was an ape, so distinctly 

 simian in respect to teeth, jaws and brain case that his 

 close affinity with the common stock from which stems 

 the later Pongidae is indubitable, and Dart's name is 

 justified. Perhaps he goes back 1,000,000 years, to the 

 opening of the Pleistocene. His immediate pongid an- 

 cestry is unknown, but is to be sought among the primi- 

 tive apes which, descended from Dryopithecus of the 

 Miocene, ranged over wide areas of the Old World in 

 Pliocene time. A single fossil primate, Oreopithecus, has 

 been recovered from Early PHocene deposits in Italy; the 



