History of Classification in Palaeoanthropology

By j.galway-witham
  • 375 BCE

    Plato composes Republic

    In Republic (and most other works) Plato proposes his theory of forms, which is likely the origin for our modern understanding of natural kinds
  • 370 BCE

    Plato composes Phaedrus

    Plato advocates for us to "cut nature at its joints" in order to create natural divisions between objects. He also presents his 'diairesis'.
  • 350 BCE

    Aristotle composes his Metaphysics

    Aristotle develops Plato's 'eidos' (species) and introduces 'genos' (genus). He also introduces his 'universals'.
  • 349 BCE

    Aristotle composes Parts of Animals

    Aristotle says that the dichotomous divisions in his logical works should not be extended to animals
  • 400

    St. Augustine writes Confessions

    St. Augustine suggested that species are God's 'ideal' (Neo-Platonism in Christianity)
  • 1200

    Aristotle's works are rediscovered in Europe following translation from Arabic

    Albertus Magnus wrote one of the early commentaries on Aristotle

  • Andrea Cesalpino publishes De Plantis

    Adopted Arisotelian essentialism and classified plants on the basis of functionally important traits

  • Tyson proposes that 'pygmies' (chimpanzees) are the 'missing link'

  • Linnaeus publishes the first edition of Systema Naturae

    Linnaeus expanded Ray's fixed hierarchy to 5 ranks, and focused on a universal classification system using 'essential' (functional) traits, following Cesalpino

  • John Ray (and others) worked to develop fixed hierarchies

  • Buffon publishes Histoire Naturelle

    Here Buffon classifies humans into six racial groups, criticises Linnaeus classification system, and presents species as historical entities

  • Linnaeus updates Systema Naturae

    One of a number of updates, here Linnaeus groups humans into four races, and he also suggests that new species can form via hybridisation

  • Blumenbach publishes On the Natural Variety of Mankind

  • Malthus publishes An Essay on the Principle of Population, which inspires both Darwin and Wallace to independently develop the theory of natural selection

  • Lamarck publishes Philosophie Zoologique

  • Georges Cuvier publishes Essay on the Theory of the Earth

    Here Cuvier proposes that earlier taxa have gone extinct due to ancient catastrophes

  • Georges Cuvier publishes Regne Animal

    Cuvier presents his 'embranchements' classification system, where he suggests that all animals can be divided up on the basis of four body plans

  • William Sharp MacLeay publishes Horae Entomologicae

    Develops the concepts of 'affinities' and 'analogies,' which are later developed after various iterations into the modern concepts of 'homology' and 'homoplasy'

  • Crania discovered in Engis Cave, Belgium

  • Morton publishes Crania Americana, the first of a series of craniometric studies that attempt to demonstrate white biological superiority

  • John Stuart Mill publishes A system of Logic

    Mill rejects essentialism and views classification as a largely instrumentalist endeavour

  • Cranium discovered at Forbes Quarry, Gibraltar

  • Nott and Gliddon publish Types of Mankind, which serves as 'justification' for later racial theory

  • Homo neanderthalensis named

  • Neanderthal 1 discovered in the Neander Valley, Germany

  • Darwin publishes On the Origin of Species

  • Broca publishes On the Phenomenon of Hybridity in the Genus Homo, in which proposes that each race is a distinct species within genus Homo

  • Huxley publishes Man’s Place in Nature in which he presents a unilinear view of human evolution

  • Haeckel proposes his Biogenetic Law, in which "ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny"

  • Darwin publishes The Descent of Man

  • Cranial and postcranial remains discovered at Spy, Belgium

  • Pithecanthropus erectus named

  • Mendel's work is rediscovered

  • Homo heidelbergensis named

  • Boas publishes Changes in Bodily Form of Descendants of Immigrants which demonstrates phenotypic plasticity and undermines typological race concepts

  • Piltdown Man 'discovered'

  • Eoanthropus dawsoni named

  • Hrdlička founds the AJPA

  • Taung Child discovered at Taung, South Africa

  • Australopithecus africanus named

  • Sinanthropus pekinensis named

  • L. Leakey discovers Oldowan artefacts

  • First australopith discovered in East Africa, M.18773 (Laetolil Beds, Olduvai)

  • Australopithecus transvaalensis named

  • Montagu challenges the use of race concepts

  • Mayr publishes Systematics and the Origin of Species, marking the start of the ‘New Systematics’

  • Weidenreich introduces multiregional evolution

  • Sts 5 discovered at Sterkfontein, South Africa

  • Australopithecus prometheus named

  • Mayr re-systematises the hominin fossil record, causing major confusion to palaeoanthropology for several decades

  • Washburn calls for the ‘new physical anthropology’

  • Franklin photographs the ‘B form’ of DNA, which Watson and Crick later use to propose DNA’s helical structure

  • Piltdown Man declared a hoax

  • OH 5 discovered at Olduvai, Tanzania

  • Zinjanthropus boisei named

  • OH 7 discovered at Olduvai, Tanzania

  • Coon publishes The Origin of Races in which he proposes a model of multiregional evolution

  • Goodman proposes Homo be placed in Hominidae and not Pongidae

  • Homo habilis named

  • Simons and Pilbeam revise the taxonomy of Micocene hominoids

  • Olduvai Bed 1 dated to 1.8 mya by potassium-argon dating

  • Sarich and Wilson applied the molecular clock method to propose that Pan, Gorilla and Homo diverged ~ 5 mya

  • Hennig proposes phylogenetic systematics, which serves to influence hominin systematics and taxonomy up to the present

  • Wolpoff and Brace (1973) propose the single species hypothesis

  • KNM-ER 1470 discovered at Koobi Fora, Kenya

  • AL 288-1 discovered at Hadar, Ethiopia

  • KNM-ER 3733 discovered at Koobi Fora, Kenya

  • Laetoli footprints discovered by M. Leakey, lending credence to the reconstruction of Australopithecus afarensis as a biped

  • Australopithecus afarensis named

  • Johanson and White propose that Homo evolved from Au. afarensis, and that Au. africanus is a side-branch

  • Homo rudolfensis named

  • Cann et al. publish the 'mitochondrial eve' paper that provides strong support for a single, recent origin of modern humans in Africa

  • Work on the Human Genome Project begins

  • Australopithecus anamensis named

  • Ardipithecus ramidus named

  • Australopithecus bahrelghazali named

  • Homo antecessor named

  • KNM-WT 40000 discovered at Lake Turkana, Kenya

  • Australopithecus garhi named

  • Kenyanthropus platyops named

  • Orrorin tugenensis named

  • Ardipithecus kadabba named

  • Sahelanthropus tchadensis named

  • Work on the Human Genome Project is completed

  • Denisovan remains (tooth and finger bone) discovered at Denisova, Siberia

  • Denisovans ‘discovered’ by the sequencing of a small bone fragment and a tooth

  • Green et al. publish the Neanderthal genome

  • Australopithecus sediba named

  • Homo naledi named

  • Australopithecus deyiremeda announced

  • Denisovan-Neanderthal first-generation hybrid announced