George Grant MacCurdy

George Grant MacCurdy (April 17, 1863 – November 15, 1947) was an American anthropologist, born at Warrensburg, Mo., where he graduated from the State Normal School in 1887, after which he attended Harvard (AB, 1893; AM, 1894); then studied in Europe at Vienna, Paris (School of Anthropology), and at Berlin (1894–1898; and at Yale (PhD, 1905).[1] He was employed at Yale from 1902 onward as instructor, lecturer, curator of the anthropological collections (1902–1910), and assistant professor of archaeology after 1910.[2] He was a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.[3]

George Grant MacCurdy in 1924

European hypothesis

MacCurdy argued for Europe as the origin of the first humans, in his 1924 book Human Origins, he said: “The beginnings of things human, so far as we have been able to discover them, have their fullest exemplification in Europe”.[4] His hypothesis was disproven in the late-mid-20th century, when hundreds of fossils found in East Africa evidenced the region as the cradle of humankind.[5][6]

Works

He was the author of:

  • Obsidian razor of the Aztecs (1900)
  • The Eolithic Problem (1905)
  • Some Phases of Prehistoric Archœology (1907)
  • Recent Discoveries Bearing on the Antiquity of Man in Europe. (1910)
  • A Study of Chiriquian Antiquities (1911)
  • Review of Mayan Art (1913)
  • Human Skulls from Gazelle Peninsula (1914)
  • Human Origins (1924)
  • The Coming of Man, USA: The University Society, 1935 [1932], retrieved 10 October 2011

References
  1. (Minnesota State University (Biography) Archived 2010-06-03 at the Wayback Machine
  2. THEODORE D. McCOWN (University of California) Archived 2011-07-24 at the Wayback Machine
  3. "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-08-17.
  4. George Grant MacCurdy, Human Origins, p. 311
  5. "The Ethiopian Rift Valley - The cradle of mankind". ethiopianrift.igg.cnr.it. Retrieved 2021-03-03.
  6. Maslin, Mark (2017). The Cradle of Humanity: How the Changing Landscape of Africa Made Us So Smart. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-870452-2.


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