330 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTnTTTION, 1955 



THE PRIMARY ARMAMENT OF AUSTRALOPITHECUS 



(Plate 4) 



The creatures that made this great heap of bones at Makapansgat 

 lived chiefly on antelopes, which formed 92 percent of their diet ; but 

 they also destroyed hyenas and porcupines. Just as the hyena was 

 their most popular carnivorous prey, so among the rodents they spe- 

 cialized in porcupines despite their quills (perhaps because they 

 needed their quills as well as their flesh). Among the primates they 

 concentrated on baboons; of the ungulates (other than antelopes) 

 they liked wart hogs best of all. 



The principal part of the body that recommended these non-antelope 

 creatures to the midden-making australopithecines was the skull, as 

 evidenced by the fact that 82.5 percent of the fragments are cranial ! 

 The parts of the skull they treasured were, first, the lower jaw, and 

 second, the upper jaw. Obviously, too, the australopithecines were 

 head hunters, as only one vertebra (a baboon atlas) of these 140 non- 

 antelope creatures has been found. The heads were apparently cut 

 off sharp at the junction of skull and neck; the bodies were probably 

 left to rot in the veld. 



The anatomical feature that the upper and lower jaws of hyenas, 

 baboons, wart hogs, and porcupines have in common is long, sharp 

 teeth (lacerating canines or chisellike incisors) such as will rip open 

 a belly or tear out the eyes of an enemy. These ancient hunters were 

 after the tusks and the teeth for cutting tools. 



Darwin (1871, p. 106) tells the story of a female baboon, kept under 

 confinement by Brehm in North Africa, which "had so capacious a 

 heart that she not only adopted young monkeys of other species, but 

 stole dogs and cats, which she continually carried about. . . . An 

 adopted kitten scratched this affectionate baboon who certainly had a 

 fine intellect, for she was much astonished at being scratched and im- 

 mediately examined the kitten's feet and without more ado bit off the 

 claws." 



The Makapansgat australopithecines had not only the baboon's wit 

 to recognize those portions of their antagonists' anatomy, in which their 

 strength and fury lay, and to deprive them of their power, but also the 

 manual skill to hack and saw off the offending parts, and in addition 

 the understanding to abstract from these parts the vital portions, and, 

 most of all, the intellectual ability to turn them against their possessors. 



No better illustration of these abilities has been found than is illus- 

 trated by the horse (zebra type) remains ; there, apart from the cranial 

 fragments, we find no vertebrae or any portion of the limbs above the 

 hock. The australopithecines wanted the distal part of the hind limb, 

 the part with the "kick" in it. Similarly with the chalicotheres, the 



