Dart, Raymond Arthur

Dart, Raymond Arthur

(born Feb. 4, 1893, Toowong, Brisbane, Queen., Austl.—died Nov. 22, 1988, Johannesburg, S.Af.) Australian-born South African physical anthropologist and paleontologist. In 1925, when Asia was still believed to be the cradle of humankind, Dart's announcement of the discovery of the Taung skull near the Kalahari substantiated Charles Darwin's prediction that such ancestral hominin forms would be found in Africa. Dart named the skull, establishing it as the type specimen of a new genus and species, Australopithecus africanus. He lived to see his findings corroborated by additional discoveries that firmly established Africa as the site of human origins. Dart taught at the University of the Witwatersrand from 1923 to 1958.