Phillip V. Tobias

Phillip Vallentine Tobias ( born October 14, 1925 in Durban, † June 7, 2012 in Johannesburg) was a South African paleoanthropologist and author of more than 1100 scientific publications.

In his obituary called him Bernard Wood in the journal Nature as the " doyen of paleoanthropological science community," the board more than half a century, the excavations at Sterkfontein. In Science, Tim White wrote: "Africa Has now lost one of her greatest scientists. "

Career

Phillip Tobias attended St. Andrew 's School and a secondary school in Durban, Bloemfontein. From 1942 he studied at the University of the Witwatersrand ( " Wits " ) in Johannesburg Medicine and earned his bachelor's degree in 1946 in the fields of physiology, histology and embryology. Later he specialized in the Master 's program on the subjects Anatomy and Genetics ( completion 1950), and he earned in 1953 in Genetics and the first doctoral degree; a second PhD, he later earned paleoanthropology in the subject. In the late 1940s, Tobias was described in contact with Raymond Dart, who was then head of the Department of Anatomy and recently discovered by a quarry worker at Taung and later known as the Taung Child as the fossil of previously unknown species of Australopithecus africanus was.

Beginning of the 1950s, Tobias decided to stay, despite tougher apartheid system in South Africa and to fight at his university, however. In 1949 Tobias was called as president of the National Union of South African Students, the first anti -apartheid movement in South African universities to life. In 1977, Steve Biko was killed in police custody, it was Tobias who brought a judicial investigation in motion.

From 1959 until his retirement in 1993, he was Professor and Head of the Department of Anatomy at the Medical Faculty of the University of the Witwatersrand.

Research Topics

Following his doctoral thesis Tobias took part in an expedition, whose objective was to study the San people of the Kalahari Desert. This he later described in his autobiography Into the Past: A Memoir. as a key experience which made ​​him the anthropology researchers in the tray.

1955/56, he examined hominin fossils that were preserved in the UK, France and the USA. He then returned to South Africa, taught at the " Wits " and in 1959, shortly after the death of Raymond Dart, was appointed head of the Department of Anatomy, University of the Witwatersrand. In the same year he was invited by Mary Leakey and Louis Leakey, in the processing of the type specimen of the then Zinjanthropus boisei (now: Paranthropus boisei ) skull participate discovery mentioned. Until the early 1990s, into the which he discovered hominin discoveries totaled more than 600 fossils, mostly of Australopithecus africanus.

He was next to Ron Clarke co- author of the first publication of foot bones belonging to an Australopithecus fossil, which became known as Little Foot. From it also comes the highly-detailed, first description of Homo habilis, whose bones had been given salvaged in 1964 by Louis Leakey and for further analysis to Phillip Tobias.

Awards

In 1987 he was awarded the Balzan Prize in 1997 and the Charles R. Darwin Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Association of Physical Anthropologists. In recognition of his scientific and political achievements, he was honored in 1992 by President de Klerk with the Order of Meritorious Service in Gold and 1999 by President Nelson Mandela with the Order of the Southern Cross of South Africa.

He was a founding member of the Academy of Science of South Africa and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

The Royal Society of South Africa took him on as one of two South African members and awarded him only rarely awarded John Herschel Medal.

Works (selection)

• With Louis Leakey and JR Napier: A new species of the genus Homo from Olduvai Gorge. In: Nature, vol 202, 1964, pp. 7-9, doi: 10.1038/202007a0, Full Text (PDF; 352 kB).
• Olduvai Gorge. Volume 2: The Cranium and Maxillary Dentition of Australopithecus ( Zinjanthropus ) boisei. Cambridge University Press, New York 1967.
• Olduvai Gorge. Volume 4: The skulls, endocasts and teeth of Homo habilis. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge / New York 1991, ISBN 0-521-75886-6.
• Ronald J. Clarke: Sterkfontein member 2 foot bones of the oldest South African hominid. In: Science, Volume 269, 1995, pp. 521-524, doi: 10.1126/science.7624772.
• Into the Past: A Memoir. Picador Africa, 2005, ISBN 1-7701001-5-6.