Early Cousin

For a decade the mammoth limestone caves of the Makapansgat Valley in South Africa (TIME, June 20, 1955) have been yielding the bones and implements of a remarkably human creature known to anthropologists as Australopithecus prometheus (African man-ape).

Prometheus roamed the savannas during the early Ice Age a million or so years ago, and anthropologists believe he may have been one of the first "protomen." His most ardent biographer is Anatomist Raymond Arthur Dart of Johannesburg, who has constructed a vivid picture of his ways from the man-ape fragments thus far dug up. In a report released by the Smithsonian Institution, Dr. Dart adds a few more imaginative strokes to his Promethean portrait.

The fact that his spinal cord entered his skull from below, says Dr. Dart, suggests that prometheus "strode and raced across the veld" on two legs. Most of the remains so far uncovered have been those of a pygmy-sized creature (about 4 ft. high, 100 lbs.), with a brain twice the size of a chimpanzee's.

Efficient Killer. Prometheus, Dart concludes, must have been a prodigious hunter, because around his bones are scattered fragments of the antelope, giraffe, buffalo, rhinoceros and hippopotamus. He also fished the streams for water turtles and robbed the nest of the shrike. Giant rodent moles, wart hogs and porcupines were staples of his diet. No creature except modern man has ever been such an efficient killer, says Dr. Dart.

Prometheus killed with the bones of his victims: the jawbones of prehistoric buffalos, zebras and giraffes, the tusks of hyenas and saber-toothed tigers; stiletto-sharp shattered thighbones. For a small creature, he struck his victims with amazing force. One Makapansgat cave contains the skull of a young man-ape who was killed, Dr. Dart believes, with a bludgeon blow to the chin that shattered the jaw on both sides of the face and knocked out all front teeth.

Modern Heel. The dexterity with which prometheus killed indicates, says Dr. Dart, that he possessed a heel much like modern man's. While an ape can squeeze and crush, it takes a heel-furnished man to "rotate the whole body around stabilized feet and therewith dance a jig, plant a fist in a face, throw an opponent in wrestling or hurl a projectile with accuracy." Prometheus was capable of doing all these things, and his dexterity enabled him to fashion crude stone tools with a cutting edge to slice up his victims after he killed them. Strangely, he often seemed to prefer to cut off the heads of animals or fellow man-apes, leaving the bodies to rot in the veld. This may have been because he had a taste for brains (he frequently bored a small hole in the skulls of his victims).

Prometheus probably had a communication system of sorts, says Dr. Dart. Hunting and the techniques and tools of killing probably forced him to develop "an adequate number of distinctive gestures and signals . . . for communicating [his] intentions while assembling and employing tools . . . and dividing the spoils of the chase." His proudest accomplishment may even have been the use of fire. Dr. Dart has discovered a number of charred animal bones in the Makapansgat caves which he thinks might have been scorched in a man-ape bonfire.

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