© The contents of this finding aid are the copyright of the University of Chicago Library
© 2007 University of Chicago Library
The collection is open for research.
When quoting material from this collection, the preferred citation is: Origin of Man Symposium. Records, [Box #, Folder #], Hanna Holborn Gray Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library
The "Origin of Man" symposium was held April 2-4, 1965, at the Center for Continuing Education. It was organized and convened by Sol Tax, Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago, and sponsored by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
The symposium was a working conference of anthropologists, designed to assist the participants in re-thinking and reformulating their views on the origin of man in the light of new information on the subject.
The symposium was occasioned by Louis S.B. Leakey's visit to the United States. L.S.B. Leakey was the principal anthropologist involved with the archeological work at the Olduvai Gorge in Tanganyika, where the partial remains of several early men were discovered. It was Leakey's theory that three types of early man-like beings, habilis, Pithecanthropis, and Australopithecus, were living in the gorge simultaneously. This view of man's origin in opposed to the view traditionally held by anthropologists that of a single line of descent for man.
The "Origin of Man" papers have been organized into two parts. Boxes 2, 3, 4, contain transcripts and tapes of the symposium. Box 1 contains all other materials pertaining to the symposium--preparations for the conference, press coverage, financial arrangements, some of the individual papers presented at the symposium, and correspondence about the symposium
The following related resources are located in the Department of Special Collections: