XIX - The taxonomic status of Zinjanthropus and of the australopithecines in general

Summary

General considerations

‘Splitting’ and ‘lumping’: an historical perspective

The well-known trends of ‘splitting’ and ‘lumping’ are very much evident in the history of australopithecine taxonomy and nomenclature. Thus, at one time or another, the following generic labels have been applied to supposed members of this group: Australopithecus, Plesianthropus, Paranthropus, Telanthropus, Meganthropus, Praeanthropus, Zinjanthropus, and Hemanthropus (originally called Hemianthropus). We know today that many of these nomina did not represent valid taxa or good biological units.

By and large, splitting seems inevitable at an early stage in the sequence of discoveries of a group; lumping is equally inevitable at a later stage when many specimens have accumulated, when ranges of variation for the group in question and for related groups have been minutely explored, when the time dimension is better known, and when a deeper understanding has been gained of the functional and cultural capacities associated with a group of fossils showing a particular morphological pattern.

Because we now possess much of the detailed knowledge necessary to detect where affinities lie, the time is ripe for a reconsideration of hominid fossil designations and the combining of previously separated groups of fossils into broader and more valid taxa.

The fact that the author has been led by his studies of Zinjanthropus and other australopithecines to regard them all as members of a single genus is based not upon any enhanced biological insight, but upon the irresistible body of evidence that has accumulated over the four decades since Australopithecus africanus was named and launched by Dart (1925).