Besides, the average cranial capacity of Cro-Magnon skulls is 1,650 cubic centimeters while that of modern Europeans is about 1,400—which implies that the human brain is shrinking. It could be. And perhaps for the best.
But this leads in another direction, so let’s return to the Transvaal, to Professor Dart patiently sifting the earth for additional scraps ofAustralopithecus.
In the Makapan valley he discovered where a troop of these “chimpanzees” had stopped, and the campsite revealed gruesome proof of human behavior—an assortment of baboon skulls together with that of anotherAustralopithecus child. The jaw of each baboon skull, as well as that of the child, had been broken in such a way as to suggest a feast. Chimpanzees customarily eat plants and fruit, not baboons, nor do adult chimps eat their own children. So, Dart reasoned, these creatures a million years ago were evolving rapidly.
He showed his skull collection to an expert in forensic medicine who told him that theAustralo infant and forty-two baboons had been dispatched by powerful blows with a hard object. Dart suspected that the hard object, or objects, might still be around. Presently he found them: antelope leg bones. In some instances a particular bone could be fitted to the break in a particular skull. The fragile, porcelain-thin skulls of infant baboons had been emptied of their brains, then crushed and tossed aside, says Dart, just as a human child might crush and throw away a breakfast eggshell.
He published an article about these carnivorous Transvaal citizens in 1949, and being a scientist he gave it an appropriate title: “The Predatory Implemental Techniques of Australopithecus.” Very few people who read it liked it.
Six years later a scientific congress met at the town of Livingstone near Victoria Falls. Dart was allotted twenty minutes, which meant he scarcely had time to summarize what he had learned. His talk seems to have been ignored. Many of the scientists did not bother to look at theexhibit he had prepared. Those skulls could not have been fractured by our ancestors. Probably a band of hyenas killed the baboons. Or some leopards. Or it could be that porcupines, which occasionally collect bones to chew on—porcupines might be responsible.
Said von Koenigswald, speaking for most of the Establishment: “It is easy to take such bones for implements, and this is in fact often done. But a comparison of the picture produced by Dart shows without any doubt that these bones have been gnawed and split by hyenas.”
However, a British paleontologist named Sutcliffe who had spent a great deal of time studying hyenas did not agree. He said it would be uncharacteristic of hyenas to leave all those skulls around. Hyenas pulverize everything. Then, too, some rudimentary “tools” were unearthed in theAustralo encampment, and the shaping of implements for a specific purpose is a trait that distinguishesHomo sapiens from beasts.
Rather cautiously the professionals began revising their opinion of Dart’s exhibit.
Meanwhile, Dr. Broom had been attracted to the Sterkfontein lime-works where some fossils were turning up. The plant manager, Mr. Barlow, previously had worked at Taungs and he now understood that there were commodities other than lime; he was gathering fossils and selling them to tourists. Through him Dr. Broom got a few interesting bones, though nothing important. Then one day Mr. Barlow said, “I’ve something nice for you this morning.” And he produced a jaw with recently broken teeth which Broom bought for two pounds. However, because the matrix looked different, Broom suspected it had not been dug out of the quarry. When asked about this, Barlow grew evasive. Dr. Broom therefore returned to the limeworks on the manager’s day off and showed the jaw to some workmen. None of them recognized it.
Broom then had a serious talk with the plant manager, who admitted he had gotten the jaw from a boy named Gert Terblanche. Broom drove to the Terblanche home. Gert was at school. Broom drove immediately to the school. He arrived just after noon, during playtime, and spoke to the headmaster. The boy was located and took out of his pocket “four of the most wonderful teeth ever seen in the world’s history.” These teeth, says Broom, “I promptly purchased from Gert, and transferred to my own pocket.”
The boy had noticed the jaw protruding from a ledge. He had worked it loose by beating it with a rock, which accounted for the broken teeth.
In 1939 the price of lime dropped, closing the Sterkfontein quarry, and the Second World War further restricted archaeological work.
After the war Prime Minister Jan Smuts asked Dr. Broom to see what else he could find at Sterkfontein. Barlow was now dead, but from him Dr. Broom had learned to appreciate dynamite, so that very soon the vast African silence was being thunderously violated. And almost at once, remarks William Howells, first-rate fossils began describing small arcs in the air to the tune of his blasts.
The most startling find was an immensely powerful jaw—a jaw so massive that its owner came to be known as the Nutcracker Man. Further bits and pieces of these robust nutcracker people, or near-people, revealed the significant fact that their skulls had been crested like the skulls of orangutans or gorillas.
Dart and Broom now were convinced that East Africa was where it all began, but very few professionals agreed with them. Africa seemed rather distant. One would expect humanity’s cradle to be nearer the center of things. Not that our first squiggly tracks ought to show up
