'Hurrah for the missing link!': A history of apes, ancestors and a crucial piece of evidence

Notes and Records of the Royal Society

Volumn 65, Issue 1, 2011, Pages 83-98

  Kjæaergaard, Peter C ^a  

^a HARVARD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

Anthropology; Charles Darwin; Evolution; Human origins; Missing link; Nineteenth century

Indexed keywords

EID: 79851481174     PISSN: 00359149     EISSN: 17430178     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1098/rsnr.2010.0101     Document Type: Article

References (83)

1. J. Marchant (ed.), Alfred Rüssel Wallace: Letters and Reminiscences (Cassell & Co., London, 1916), pp. 314-315.
2. A. R. Wallace, Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection with Some of Its Applications (Macmillan & Co., London, 1889), p. 460.
3. Erasmus Darwin to Charles Darwin (9 April 1864), in The correspondence of Charles Darwin (ed. F. Burkhardt et al), vol. 12, p. 129 (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
4. Charles Lyell to William Pengelly (12 February 1864) and Charles Lyell to George Ticknor (28 April 1864), in Life, letters and journals of Sir Charles Lyell (ed. K. M. Lyell), pp. 383- 384 (John Murray, London, 1881)
5. George Ticknor to Charles Lyell (31 March 1863), in Life, letters, and journals of George Ticknor (ed. A. Ticknor), vol. 2, pp. 460-461 (Sampson Low, Marston, Searle & Rivington, London, 1876).
6. C. Lyell, The Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of Man, with Remarks on Theories of the Origin of Species by Variation (John Murray, London, 1863), p. 498.
7. E. Haeckel, The History of Creation, vol. 2 (Henry S. King, London, 1876), p. 325; see also pp. 293-294.
8. Much has been written about Dubois's work and discovery of what is now classified as Homo erectus remains. See, for example, R. Leakey and J. Slikkerveer, Man-ape, ape-man: the quest for human's place in nature and Dubois' 'missing link' (Kenya Wildlife Service, Leiden, 1993)
9. and P. Shipman's biography The man who found the missing link: Eugene Dubois and his lifelong quest to prove Darwin right (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2001). The latter is popularly written but rich in detail and based on comprehensive archival studies.
10. For examples of the missing link in nineteenth-century popular culture see J. Goodall, Performance and evolution in the age of Darwin: out of the natural order (Taylor & Francis, London, 2002)
11. and G. Beer, Forging the missing link: interdisciplinary stories (Cambridge University Press, 1992).
12. For the early twentieth century see C. Clark, '"You are here": missing links, chains of beings and the language of cartoons', Isis 100, 571-589 (2009).
13. J. Reader provides a readable account of the history of paleoanthropology in Missing links: the hunt for earliest man (Penguin, London, 1990).
14. See M. Landau, Narratives of human evolution (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 1993)
15. and 'Human evolution as narrative', Am. Sci. 72, 262-268 (1984).
16. In his analysis of human evolution narratives W. Stoczkowski finds deeper cultural and philosophical roots predating Darwin's theory of evolution and thus constructs a different narrative than Landau's in Explaining human origins (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
17. Reader, op. cit. (note 8), p. 1.
18. Reader is far from alone, and we find similar claims from numerous authors across genres, languages and media. In the popular book The Jesuit and the skull: Teilhard de Chardin, evolution, and the search for Peking man (Penguin, London, 2007) A. D. Aczel writes, 'Along with Darwinism, there came a concept of a "missing link" between humans and apes' (p. 43).
19. Similar statements can be found in, for example, T. Frängsmyr's Pekingmänniskan: En historia utan slut (Natur och Kultur, Stockholm, 2006). Another example is from the television documentary The link about Darwinius masillae, in which David Attenborough says, 'remarkably, exactly 150 years after Darwin put forward the proposition that human beings were part of the rest of animal life, here at last we have a link which connects us with not only the apes and monkeys but also with the entire animal kingdom' (BBC DVD, London, 2009). Accepting the palaeoanthropological conformity to specific narratives, Glynn Isaac was little worried about the use of literary components such as missing links and heroes and pointed instead to a positive potential for talking about human evolution: 'The legitimate excitement which scientists and lay folk alike feel over the finding of missing links, is thoroughly familiar from newspapers and magazines-as is the existence of still another involvement of paleoanthropology with hero mythologies'
20. G. Isaac, 'Aspects of human evolution', in Evolution from molecules to men (ed. D. S. Bendall), pp. 510-539 (Cambridge University Press, 1985), at p. 516.
21. J. A. Secord, Victorian sensation: the extraordinary publication, reception, and secret authorship of Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (University of Chicago Press, 2000), pp. 2 and 4.
22. Although Arthur O. Lovejoy's classical study The great chain of being: the history of an idea (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 1936) is historiographically outdated, it still provides important pointers to the debates and their historical actors.
23. See also F. Moran III, 'Between primates and primitives: natural man as the missing link in Rousseau's Second Discourse', J. Hist. Ideas 54, 37-58 (1993).
24. L. N. R. [Ellen Ranyard], The Missing Link; or Bible-Women in the homes of the London Poor (James Nisbet, London, 1859).
25. See also V. Griffiths, 'Biblewomen from London to China: the transnational appropriation of a female mission idea', Women's Hist. Rev. 17, 521-541 (2008)
26. and E. Denny, 'The second missing link: Bible nursing in 19th century London', J. Adv. Nurs. 26, 1175-1182 (1997). (Pubitemid 127454804)
27. W. Swainson, On the Natural History and Classification of Birds, vol. 1 (Longman, London, 1836), p. 5.
28. See also W. Swainson, A Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural History (Longman, London, 1834), pp. 204-208.
29. For a brief introduction to the quinarian system see R. J. O'Hara, 'Representations of the natural system in the nineteenth century', Biol. Phil. 6, 255-274 (1991).
30. C. Lyell, A Manual of Elementary Geology: or, the Ancient Changes of the Earth and its Inhabitants as illustrated by its Geological Monuments (London: John Murray, 1851), p. 220. This was the third and revised edition of Elements of Geology, first published in 1838. The title for the third edition was changed slightly. Lyell continued to use the metaphor in his writings, eventually applying a more systematic approach to its use and geological implications.
31. C. Lyell, 'Anniversary Address of the President', J. Geol. Soc. 7, xxv-lxxvi (1851), at pp. xxvi-xxvii.
32. The notebooks are at Cambridge University Library (CUL DAR 121 and CUL DAR 122). Facsimile reproductions of microfilm copies are available at http://darwin-online.org.uk/.
33. See also P. H. Barrett, P. J. Gautrey, S. Herbert, D. Kohn and S. Smith (eds), Charles Darwin's notebooks, 1836-1844: geology, transmutation of species, metaphysical enquiries (Cambridge University Press, 1987).
34. The issue of 'Darwin's delay' has long been a topic of hot debate among historians of science. See, for instance, J. van Wyhe, 'Mind the gap: did Darwin avoid publishing his theory?', Notes Rec. R. Soc. 61, 177-205 (2007).
35. [R. Chambers], Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (John Churchill, London, 1844), p. 296.
36. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Ibid, p. 131.
37. Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, Ibid, p. 87.
38. R. Corbey, The metaphysics of apes: negotiating the animal-human boundary (Cambridge University Press, 2005), provides an excellent discussion of the relationship between humans and apes as one of the most important interfaces for negotiating the human-animal boundary since the eighteenth century.
39. For deep time, see M. Rudwick's excellent books Bursting the limits of time: the reconstruction of geohistory in the age of revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2005)
40. and Worlds before Adam: the reconstruction of geohistory in the age of reform (University of Chicago Press, 2008).
41. M. Goodrum's articles 'Prolegomenon to a history of paleoanthropology: the study of human origins as a scientific enterprise. Part I.Antiquity to the Enlightenment', Evol. Anthropol. 13, 172-180 (2004) (Pubitemid 39558059)
42. Prolegomenon to a history of paleoanthropology: the study of human origins as a scientific enterprise. Part II. Enlightenment to the twentieth century', Evol. Anthropol. 13, 224-233 (2004) provide a useful overview of scientific studies of human origins from antiquity to the twentieth century.
43. R. Owen, 'On the Anthropoid Apes, and their Relations to Man', Proc. R. Instn Gt Br. 2, 26-41 (1855), at p. 26;
44. see also Reader, Proc. R. Instn Gt Br., op. cit. (note 8), pp. 5-6
45. and L. G. Wilson, 'The gorilla and the question of human origins: the brain controversy', J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci. 51,184-207 (1996). (Pubitemid 126718462)
46. More, cited in Owen, J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., op. cit. (note 23), p. 41.
47. Owen, J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., op. cit. (note 23), p. 27.
48. J. Hist. Med. Allied Sci., Ibid., p. 40.
49. See also N. A. Rupke, Richard Owen: biology without Darwin (University of Chicago Press, 2009).
50. Owen, Richard Owen: biology without Darwin, op. cit. (note 23), p. 41.
51. Secord, Richard Owen: biology without Darwin, op. cit. (note 11), p. 510.
52. Finally, almost at the end of the book, in his concluding chapter Darwin wrote, 'In the distant future I see open fields for far more important researches. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history'; C. R. Darwin, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (John Murray, London, 1859), p. 488. What role the evolution of humankind played to Darwin is a large topic in itself. As this article is not about Darwin's own intellectual development I shall not touch on it further and shall mention only that, despite Darwin's almost complete silence, it was indeed a topic that he had thought deeply about. In December 1857, for example, he wrote to Alfred Russel Wallace: 'You ask whether I shall discuss "man"; - I think I shall avoid the whole subject, as so surrounded with prejudices, though I fully admit that it is the highest & most interesting problem for the naturalist' (27 December 1857);
53. in The correspondence of Charles Darwin (ed. F. Burkhardt et al.), vol. 6 (Cambridge University Press, 1990).
54. In a recent study, A. Desmond and J. A. Moore make the radical claim that Darwin arrived at his theory of evolution through his hatred of slavery: Darwin's sacred cause: race, slavery and the quest for human origins (Penguin Books, London, 2009).
55. Desmond and Moore make human evolution the centre of gravity for Darwin throughout his scientific development. M. Ruse, among others, has reacted strongly against this new reading of Darwin: 'Desmond and Moore do sterling service in showing how committed to the anti-slavery movement people in Darwin's extended family truly were. But it simply isn't true to say that this was the causal factor behind Darwin's becoming an evolutionist or his applying his thinking to our own species'; M. Ruse, 'Darwinian struggles: but is there progress?', Hist. Sci. 47, 407-430 (2009), at p. 414.
56. See also P. C. Kjærgaard, 'Darwin's sacred cause', Hist. Today 59, 69 (2009)
57. and P. C. Kjærgaard, 'Fra korstog til kortslutning', Slagmark Tidsskr. Idéhist. 54, 193-196 (2009).
58. T. H. Huxley, 'On Species and Races, and their Origin', J. Proc. R. Instn Gt Br. 3, 195-200 (1860), at pp. 198-199.
59. [John R. Leifchild], 'Literature: On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection; or, the Preservation of Favourved Races in the Struggle for Life. By Charles Darwin. (Murray.)', Athenœum (no. 1673, 19 November), 659-660 (1859), at p. 660. Darwin, Joseph D. Hooker and Thomas Henry Huxley mistakenly took the reviewer to be the geologist Samuel Pickworth Woodward.
60. See Charles Darwin to Joseph D. Hooker (20 November 1859), Joseph D. Hooker to Charles Darwin (21 November 1859) and Charles Darwin to Joseph D. Hooker (22 November 1859), in The Correspondence of Charles Darwin (ed. Frederick Burkhardt et al), vol. 7, pp. 382-384 and 387-388 (Cambridge University Press, 2001).
61. [Leifchild], The Correspondence of Charles Darwin, op. cit. (note 31), pp. 659-660.
62. See A. Ellegård's classic study Darwin and the general reader: the reception of Darwin's theory of evolution in the British periodical press, 1859-1872 (University of Chicago Press, 1990), pp. 216-241, for documentation and numerous examples.
63. It is not within the scope of this article to present the many and varied contexts in which Darwin was appropriated. These ranged from scientific, theological, philosophical and political discussions to popular culture and emerging anti-evolution movements; see, for example, Goodall, Darwin and the general reader: the reception of Darwin's theory of evolution in the British periodical press, 1859-1872, op. cit. (note 8);
64. R. L. Numbers, The creationists: from scientific creationism to intelligent design (Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2006);
65. C. A. Clark, God - or gorilla: images of evolution in the jazz age (Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2008). Several studies have demonstrated the great variation in the reception of Darwin's ideas in different geographic contexts.
66. For this see, for example, E.-M. Engels (ed.), Die Rezeption von Evolutionstheorien im 19. Jahrhundert (Suhrkamp stw, Frankfurt, 1995);
67. E.-M. Engels and T. F. Glick (eds), The reception of Charles Darwin in Europe (2 volumes) (Continuum, London, 2008);
68. T. F. Glick (ed.), The comparative reception of Darwinism (University of Texas Press, Austin, TX, 1972);
69. T. F. Glick, M. A. Puig-Samper and R. Ruiz (eds), The reception of Darwinism in the Iberian world (Kluwer, Dordrecht, 2001);
70. R. L. Numbers and J. Stenhouse (eds), Disseminating Darwinism: the role of place, race, religion, and gender (Cambridge University Press, 1999).
71. For the appropriation of Darwin in 2009 see P. C. Kjærgaard, 'The Darwin enterprise: from scientific icon to global product', Hist. Sci. 48, 105-122.
72. See R. Richards, The tragic sense of life: Ernst Haeckel and the struggle over evolutionary thought (University of Chicago Press, 2008), pp. 224-276, for an excellent introduction to Natural History of Creation, whose original German title was Natürliche Schöpfungsgeschichte. The British biologist Edwin Ray Lankester, who had studied comparative anatomy and embryology under Haeckel after graduating from Oxford, undertook a scientific revision of an English translation that was published in 1876 under the slightly less provocative title The History of Creation.
73. Haeckel, The tragic sense of life: Ernst Haeckel and the struggle over evolutionary thought, op. cit. (note 6), p. 300.
74. E. Haeckel, The Last Link: Our Present Knowledge of the Descent of Man (Adam & Charles Black, Cambridge, 1899), p. 22.
75. See also A. Sedgwick (ed.), Proceedings of the Fourth International Congress of Zoology (Cambridge University Press, 1899), pp. 76-77. The Last Link was first published by the end of 1898 and came in a second edition with an additional glossary within less than a year. The German edition was not published until 1905, as Über unsere gegenwärtige Kenntnis vom Ursprung des Menchens (Alfred Kröner, Stuttgart).
76. 'The Third International Congress of Zoölogy, Leyden, Sept. 16-21, 1895', Science (n.s.) 2, 565-576 (1895) (see the discussion on pp. 573-574)
77. and 'The Third International Congress of Zoology at Leyden', Nature 52, 554-555 (1895). Haeckel's lecture generated great excitement and applause at the meeting.
78. See, for example, the coverage in The Standard on the following day: 'The International Congress of Zoology', (Saturday, 27 August), 2 (1898).
79. Haeckel, The coverage in The Standard on the following day: 'The International Congress of Zoology, op. cit. (note 37), p. 26.
80. See S. Moser, Ancestral images: the iconography of human origins (Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1998), pp. 139-141.
81. E. Clodd, The Story of 'Primitive' Man (George Newnes, London, 1895), frontispiece, and subsequent edition (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1909), pp. 30-31. Clodd wrongly dated Dubois's discovery to 1902.
82. Clodd, The Story of 'Primitive' Man, op. cit. (note 41), pp. 13-14.
83. Julius Schiøtt, Zoologisk Have gennem 50 aar (Gyldendalske boghandel, Nordisk Forlag, Copenhagen, 1909), p. 67.