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Abstract

OUR readers will no doubt be interested in the photograph we publish showing Prof. Raymond Dart, of the Witwatersrand University, Johannesburg, with the Taungs skull. Prof. Dart, who is well known to anatomists in Great Britain, was trained under Prof. J. T. Wilson, now professor of anatomy at the University of Cambridge, and worked in London at the Royal College of Surgeons, and under Prof. Elliot Smith at University College in 1919, where he paid special attention to problems of the brain and to the skull of fossil man. Before taking up his appointment in South Africa he was one of three selected by Prof. Elliot Smith from his staff, at the request of the Trustees of the Rockefeller Foundation, to visit the medical schools of the United States. A certain amount of criticism has been levelled at Prof. Dart's nomenclature of the Taungs skull. It is generally felt that the name Australopithecus is an unpleasing hybrid as well as etymologically incorrect. Dr. J. G. de Barros e Cunha, of the Institute of. Anthropology, Coimbra, who is among those who take exception to the title on these grounds, also writes to point out that if a new family of homo-simiidce is constituted, the generic name should be Homosimis, whereas the generic name, Australopithecus, would require the family name Australo-pithecidas. Although it may be a little premature to decide, present information does not force either alternative upon us, as there does not seem to be adequate ground for the creation of a new family. Meanwhile the criticism continues, and in a cable which appeared in the Times of March n, Prof. Dart defends himself with some humour but in a manner which suggests that the niceties of etymology do not greatly appeal to him.