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By Root 1312 0

Raymond Dart in South Africa, as a variety of ape, with no direct connection to the line of human descent. Similarly, many scientists never accepted Java man, and Beijing man had only newly arrived on the scene. Although some scientists did believe Java man and Beijing man, now classified as Homo erectus, were genuine human ancestors, the picture was somewhat clouded by Piltdown man. Whereas Java man and Beijing man had humanlike jaws and apelike skulls, Piltdown man, roughly the same age, featured an apelike jaw and humanlike skull. The Neanderthals also had to be fit into the picture. Some thought they were direct human ancestors, others thought they were on an evolutionary side branch. In short, scientists of the 1930s held varying views about the progress of human evolution and the antiquity of the modern human type. Therefore, not all of them would automatically reject finds such as Leakey made at Kanam and Kanjera.

For Leakey, the Kanam and Kanjera fossils showed that a hominid close to the modern human type had existed at the time of Java man and Beijing man, or even earlier. If he was correct, Java man and Beijing man (now Homo erectus) could not be direct human ancestors, nor could Piltdown man with his apelike jaw.

11.2.3 A commission of scientists Decides on kanam and kanjera

On March 18 and March 19, 1933, the human biology section of the Royal Anthropological Institute met to consider Leakey’s discoveries at Kanam and Kanjera. Chaired by Sir Arthur Smith Woodward, 28 scientists issued reports on four categories of evidence: geological, paleontological, anatomical, and archeological (Woodward et al. 1933, pp. 477– 478). The geology committee concluded that the Kanjera and Kanam human fossils were native to the beds in which they were found. The paleontology committee said the Kanam beds were Early Pleistocene, while the Kanjera beds were no more recent than Middle Pleistocene. The archeology committee noted the presence at both Kanam and Kanjera of stone tools in the same beds where the human fossils had been found.

The anatomical committee said the Kanjera skulls exhibited “no characteristics inconsistent with the reference to the type Homo sapiens ( Woodward et al. 1933, p. 477). The same was true of the Kanjera femur.

About the Kanam jaw, the anatomy experts said: “With the possible exceptions of the thickness of the symphysis, the conformation of the anterior internal surface, and what seems to be a large pulp-cavity of the first right molar tooth, the Committee is not able to point to any detail of the specimen that is incompatible with its inclusion in the type of the Homo sapiens” ( Woodward et al. 1933, p. 478). The symphysis, the joint between the two halves of the lower jaw, runs down the middle of front part of the jaw.

The species designation Homo sapiens, as employed today by most, although not all, paleoanthropologists, includes early Homo sapiens, Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and Homo sapiens sapiens (fully modern humans). But in 1933, the Neanderthals were generally considered distinct from Homo sapiens, and the first representatives of early Homo sapiens, as presently conceived by many workers, either had not been discovered or had not been reported to the scientific world. The first report on the Steinheim skull, discovered in 1933, came out in 1935. And the Swanscombe skull fragments were not found until 1935 and 1936. So when the members of the anatomical committee classed the Kanjera skulls and Kanam jaw as Homo sapiens, they presumably meant they were within the range of anatomically modern humans.

Although the committee stated that the remains could be classified as Homo sapiens, Leakey assigned the jaw to a new species, Homo kanamensis, which he considered the immediate ancestor of Homo sapiens. According to Cole (1975, pp. 103–104), Leakey later dropped the name kanamensis in favor of sapiens.

11.2.4 Boswell strikes Again

Shortly after the 1933 conference gave Leakey its vote of confidence, geologist Percy Boswell began to question the age of the Kanam and Kanjera fossils.