- Robert Broom
Professor Robert Broom (
November 30 ,1866 ,Paisley –April 6 ,1951 ) was a South African doctor andpalaeontologist . He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received hisDSc in 1905 from theUniversity of Glasgow . In 1893 he married Mary Baird Baillie.From 1903 to 1910 he was professor of zoö and geology at Victoria College, Stellenbosch, South Africa, and subsequently he became keeper of
vertebrate palaeontology at the South African Museum,Cape Town .Contributions
Broom was first known for his study of mammal-like reptiles. After
Raymond Dart 's discovery of theTaung Child , an infant australopithecine, Broom's interest in palaeoanthropology was heightened. Broom's career seemed over and he was sinking into poverty, when Dart wrote toJan Smuts about the situation. Smuts exerting pressure on the South African government, managed to obtain a position for Broom, in 1934 with the staff of theTransvaal Museum inPretoria as an Assistant inPalaeontology .In the following years, he made a series of spectacular finds, including fragments from six hominids in
Sterkfontein , which he named "Plesianthropus transvaalensis", popularly calledMrs. Ples , but which was later classified as an adultAustralopithecus africanus , as well as more discoveries at sites inKromdraai andSwartkrans . In 1937, Broom made his most famous discovery of "Paranthropus robustus ". These discoveries helped support Dart's claims for the Taung species.The remainder of Broom's career was devoted to the exploration of these sites and the interpretation of the many early hominid remains discovered there. In 1946 he proposed the Australopithecinae subfamily. He continued to write to the very last. Shortly before his death he finished a monograph on the Australopithecines and remarked to his nephew:
Now that's finished ... and so am I. [Virginia Morell, "Ancestral Passions", Chapter 13.]
Publications
Among hundreds of articles contributed by him to scientific journals, the most important include:
*"Fossil Reptiles of South Africa" in "Science in South Africa" (1905)
*"Reptiles of Karroo Formation" in "Geology of Cape Colony" (1909)
*"Development and Morphology of the Marsupial Shoulder Girdle" in "Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh" (1899)
*"Comparison of Permian Reptiles of North America with Those of South Africa" in "Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History" (1910)
*"Structure of Skull in Cynodont Reptiles" in "Proceedings of the Zoölogical Society" (1911).See also
*
List of fossil sites "(with link directory)"
* List of hominina (hominid) fossils "(with images)"Notes and references
* D. M. S. Watson, "Robert Broom. 1866-1951" "Obituary Notices of Fellows of the Royal Society," Vol. 8, No. 21 (Nov., 1952), pp. 36-70.
* Johanson, Donald & Maitland Edey. "Lucy: The Beginnings of Humankind". New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990 ISBN 0-671-25036-1External links
* [http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/rbroom.html Biographies: Robert Broom The TalkOrigins Archive.]
* [http://www.mprinstitute.org/vaclav/Broomevo.htm Robert Broom: A Short Bibliography of his Evolutionary Works, MPRInstitute.org site.]
* [http://www.mprinstitute.org/vaclav/Broom.htm British metaphysics as reflected in Robert Broom's evolutionary theory, translation of an article by Václav Petr published in "Bulletin of the Czech Geological Survey", 75(1): 73-85. Praha 2000. Text and photos displayed entire at the MPRInstitute.org site.]
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