Boskop 1

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The restored skull Boskop 1: the bones of the shaded areas were preserved.
Illustration from R. Broom, 1918.
Reconstruction of the lower jaw:
a: View from above. Left the fragment, right the mirrored fragment with indicated teeth
b: View of the left half from the side. Teeth and the ascending branch of the lower jaw (Ramus mandibulae) are indicated. Illustration from R. Broom, 1918.

Boskop 1 is the scientific name for a fossilized skull roof , which was discovered in October 1913, with an associated, small fragment from the left half of a lower jaw , in the area of ​​the village of Boskop in South Africa . The discovery was the first of a hominine fossil in South Africa. Today he is considered to be the remnant of an early anatomically modern human ( Homo sapiens ) from the Middle Stone Age . How common at the time the Fund was however the first time in 1917 and again in 1918 - due in more detail - by Robert Broom own kind of Attributed to the genus Homo , called Homo capensis .

discovery

The fossil was discovered by construction workers while digging a trench in the village of Boskop, north of Potchefstroom , in South Africa's historic Transvaal Province (now: Northwest Province ). Robert Broom reported in 1918 that two farmers had different opinions as to whether it was human bones and therefore wanted Frederick William FitzSimons, a herpetologist and director of the Port Elizabeth Museum, to decide their bet in November 1913 . Although an expert on snakes and snake venom , FitzSimons recognized the scientific importance of the skullcap presented to him and made sure that all recovered bones were given to the Port Elizabeth Museum. Subsequent excavations at the site revealed several small fragments of the skull and bones from the area below the head. In the absence of meaningful accompanying finds, it was not possible to date the fossils, but due to the extent of the fossilization it was clear that the finds were "very old".

Naming

In August 1915, the British journal Nature published a first report with three images about the find, written by Frederick William FitzSimons. In it he writes that the skull comes "from a race as old as the Neanderthals , if not older than them and than the man from La Chapelle, " to which he is very similar in terms of the shape and thickness of the skull bones. At the same time, however, FitzSimons also named features that came close to those of anatomically modern humans, from which he concluded that although the find was to be assigned to the “Neanderthal race”, it was of “ more advanced intelligence” than the Neanderthal specimen during its lifetime . Although FitzSimon's comparison with the Neanderthals, which until then was only known from Europe, was obvious because of the very low number of hominine fossils worldwide at the time, the British anatomist and anthropologist Arthur Keith rejected FitzSimons' interpretation in a comment that was also published in Nature in August 1915 . According to Keith, the illustrations attached to the article by FitzSimons had “no characteristics whatsoever characteristic of the Neanderthal man”, the individual from whom the roof of the skull originated had rather an obviously modern appearance and a skull with a very large internal volume.

In October 1915, a detailed oral description of the find followed during a meeting of the Royal Society of South Africa by the geologist and assistant director of the South African Museum , Sidney Henry Haughton. In this lecture, which was only published in print in 1917, he initially regretted the complete destruction of the original site and finally came to the conclusion that the roof of the skull - despite the very archaic, thickened parietal bones - most closely resembled that of the Cro-Magnon people , while the lower jaw had wise features advanced evolution and is "by and large" comparable to that of a Bantu .

Above all, the very large skull, which after its discovery was ascribed an internal volume of almost 2000 cm³ and which is now estimated at 1700 to 1950 cm³ (for comparison: approx. 1500 cm³ in men living today), also aroused the interest of Robert Broom , who in 1918 also believed he recognized a clear anatomical proximity to the European Cro-Magnon people or their ancestors - an absolutely correct interpretation of the finds from today's perspective. Nevertheless, after a precise description of the characteristics of the lower jaw and the roof of the skull, Broom weighted the differences to modern humans more strongly than the similarities. He concluded that "in very early times" lived in South Africa "a race of primitive people" whose features were a large skull with very thick parietal bones and a large brain, as well as a "powerful lower jaw" with much larger incisors and canines than modern ones People are. For this type - with reference to the differences to Homo sapiens - Broom chose the species name Homo capensis , based on the Cape of Good Hope near the southern tip of Africa .

In 1918, in the final consideration of his study, Broom took up the obvious idea of bringing the “Boskop type” into morphological connection with the South African indigenous ethnic groups . However, he came to the conclusion that the scientific research of these ethnic groups and their relationships to one another had not produced any clear results and therefore little could be said on this topic. Other researchers - above all Raymond Dart in 1923 - took up these considerations well into the 1950s, which is why the "Boskop type" was at times considered a characteristic of a "Boskop race", which was identified as the "boskopoid" ancestor of the indigenous ethnic groups of South Africa has been. Numerous other fossil finds were assigned to the hypothetical "Boskop type", and as early as 1925 an article appeared in a South African journal about the presumed shape of his bones below the skull: Using around 20 fragments of long bones and vertebrae from different, imprecisely dated sites, the The independence of the "human race" constructed on the basis of skull fragments confirmed, which is neither " Bushmen , Negro nor European ". At the same time it was speculated that more recent fossil finds in South Africa were the result of a “ hybridization ” of the “Boskop race” with the “Bushmen”. In 1937, the South African race theory had solidified to such an extent that, for example, Alexander Galloway, an anatomist at the Witwatersrand University , listed a number of fossil races, but summarized them into three “physical manifestations”, which - one after the other - in South Africa The following were predominant over the past 20,000 years: "Boskop, Bush and Negro". Robert Broom, on the other hand, complained in Nature in December 1925 , referring to the skull find: "Prejudice has played a considerable part in anthropology" (prejudices have played an important role in anthropology).

Since the fossil Boskop 1 could not be precisely dated and the only known place of its discovery is that it was located in the area of ​​the eponymous village of Boskop , the scientific value of the fossil, which is probably close to the ancestors of the Khoisan , is now considered to be low.

literature

  • Jeffrey H. Schwartz and Ian Tattersall : The Human Fossil Record. Volume Two. John Wiley & Sons, 2002, pp. 40-42, full text
  • Ronald Singer: The Boskop 'Race' Problem. In: Man. Volume 58, 1958, pp. 173-178, doi: 10.2307 / 2795854 .
  • William Plane Pycraft: On the calvaria found at Boskop, Transvaal, 1913, and its relationship to Cromagnard and negroid skulls. In: Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Volume 55, 1925, pp. 179-198, doi: 10.2307 / 2843700 .

supporting documents

  1. ^ A b c d Robert Broom : The evidence afforded by the Boskop skull of a new species of primitive man (Homo capensis). In: Anthropological Papers of the American Museum of Natural History. Volume 23, No. 2, 1918, pp. 63-79, full text .
  2. ^ Robert Broom: Fossil Man in South Africa. In: The American Museum Journal. Volume 17, 1917, pp. 141-142.
  3. ↑ FitzSimons, Mr. Frederick William (herpetology, archeology). Entry in S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science .
  4. ↑ Frederick William FitzSimons: Palæolithic Man in South Africa. In: Nature . Volume 95, 1915, pp. 615-616, doi: 10.1038 / 095615c0 , full text.
  5. ↑ Arthur Keith : Palæolithic Man in South Africa. In: Nature. Volume 95, 1915, p. 616, doi: 10.1038 / 095616a0 , full text.
  6. ^ Sidney Henry Haughton: Preliminary note on the ancient human skull-remains from the Transvaal. In: Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. Volume 6, No. 1, 1917, pp. 1-13, doi: 10.1080 / 00359191709520168 , full text (PDF).
  7. ^ Entry Boskop in Bernard Wood (ed.): Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Human Evolution. 2 volumes. Wiley-Blackwell, Chichester et al. 2011, ISBN 978-1-4051-5510-6 .
  8. ^ Raymond Dart : Boskop Remains from the South-east African Coast. In: Nature. Volume 112, 1923, pp. 623-625, doi: 10.1038 / 112623a0 , full text.
  9. ↑ The "amazing" Boskops. From: johnhawks.net , last accessed June 21, 2021.
  10. ^ Raymond Dart: Recent Discoveries Bearing on Human History in Southern Africa. In: The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland. Volume 70, No. 1, 1940, pp. 13-27, doi: 10.2307 / 2844198 .
  11. ↑ HS Gear: The skeletal features of the Boskop race. In: South African Journal of Science. Volume 22, No. 11, 1925, pp. 458-469, full text .
  12. ↑ Alexander Galloway: The characteristics of the skull of the Boskop physical type. In: American Journal of Physical Anthropology. Volume 23, No. 1, 1937, pp. 31-47 [here p. 32], doi: 10.1002 / ajpa.1330230105 .
  13. ^ Robert Broom: The Boskop Skull. In: Nature. Volume 116, 1925, p. 897, doi: 10.1038 / 116897a0 .
  14. ↑ Boskop skull. On: britannica.com .

Coordinates: 26 ° 34 ′ 0 ″  S , 27 ° 7 ′ 0 ″  E