Imagine, if you will, the diversity in that group photo! The History Channel’s 2005 documentary, Ape to Man, attempts to recreate just that in a handy, 100 minute film. We learn of the struggles of the dedicated men who sought to answer some of the most fundamental questions of human existence… Who are we? Who are our evolutionary ancestors? Where on Earth do we come from? As the film explains within the first few minutes, for ages, we had no scientific explanation for these questions. That is, until the discoveries made over the last century by the scientists who risked much to bring us such revelations.
The film highlights a number of fossil milestones that mark various points along the 3 million year procession from ape-like creature to human-like protoman. It also unearths the controversies faced by those that made the discoveries, and the social climate at the time of their introduction into the scientific world. The first fossil is discovered in 1856 by a limestone harvesting crew in a cave in the Neander Valley, Germany. What is originally thought to be a piece of skull of a modern day murder victim is brought to the foreman’s attention, and is, amazingly enough, almost discarded. At the last minute, though, he instead decides to show it to a teacher friend of his he believes might have some interest in the item. The “murder victim” turns out to be a 40,000 year old skull of the hominin that is later named (you guessed it!) Neanderthal.
The interesting part is the initial hesitance on the part of the Victorian scientific community to identify this find as a new species of man. The skull is, at first, thought to belong to a barbarian that fought the Roman legions, the victim of an unknown congenital deformity, even a lost Russian Cossack. The high school anatomy teacher that retrieved the skull fragment is the first to suggest it is an ancestor to man. To most of the population at the time, this idea was absurd. Three years later, Darwin’s “Origin of Species” is published, and popular opinion regarding Neanderthal begins to change. We begin also to attempt to flesh out our family tree, and the race is on to become the first scientist to discover the “missing link,” an animal more exactly between ape and man.
That is not to say human obstinance does not play its own part in hindering the scientific process… The desire to place this “missing link” in Europe leads to one of the biggest blunders of all time in the search for our true ancestor. Piltdown man, presented before the Royal Geographical Society in 1912 by Charles Dawson, was the ideal candidate for such a creature. Its brain was large, like a human being’s, and its jaw was primitive like that of an ape. Aside from that, it was discovered in England, which is what seems to have primarily cemented its place in history. This meant our origins could be traced back to Europe, not Asia, as was previously thought, and therefore appealed to the British scientific minds of the time. Because the find was so popular, little digging was done to verify its authenticity. Decades pass before the truth is realized.
When a true contender to the throne, Taung child (or Australopithecus africanus) from South Africa was discovered by Australian anatomist Raymond Dart in 1924, it nearly devastated his career. The initial introduction of the first human ancestor to come from Africa known at the time (and earliest, at over 2,000,000 years old,) was met with much opposition. The small brain and fine teeth of Taung did not fit the mold of what scientists wanted. One London scientist who reviewed Dart’s find placed it in the same family as gorillas without having actually seen the fossil for himself. 25 years pass until Dart and his fossil gain the recognition they deserve.
In 1953, 40 years after Pildown’s ascension to the role of “missing link,” the fossil is examined scientifically for the first time. It is finally proven to be the hoax that it has been all along. The celebrated jawbone, is, indeed from a modern ape that has simple had its teeth filed down.
The tale told of our rich history (both ancient and modern) in this film is both fascinating and, well, humorous! It goes to show that even in the face of some our greatest discoveries, human selfishness has the ability to be one of our greatest downfalls. Even the most scientifically inclined among us fall victim to this kind of behavior. We are reluctant to change, we don’t like to have our conventional beliefs challenged, and we are afraid of what we don’t know. We often favor our ideas even if they aren’t the best idea going, and we don’t appreciate someone else trying to steal our thunder. What evolutionary need there is for these traits remains to be speculated. To the author, though, it’s an endearing, if annoying aspect of all of us. Perhaps one day we shall, as a species, overcome these feelings, and embrace the truth more readily, just as our ancestors overcame their fears in order to harness the power of fire. Or maybe that sort of thing will have to be up to the next species that springs from our primitive loins.
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