Grafton Elliot Smith

FRSE FRCP
Grafton Elliot Smith
Born	(1871-08-15)15 August 1871 Grafton, New South Wales
Died	1 January 1937(1937-01-01) (aged 65) Broadstairs, Kent, England
Nationality	Australian
Alma mater	University of Sydney, University of Cambridge
Spouse	Kathleen Macreadie ​ (m. 1902)​
Awards	Royal Medal (1912) Fellow of the Royal Society
Scientific career
Fields	Anatomy Archaeology

Sir Grafton Elliot Smith

Smith was the leading specialist on the evolution of the brain of his day.[7] Many of his ideas on the evolution of the primate brain still form the core of present scholarship. He proposed the following stages of development:

1. a smell-dominated insectivore of the jumping shrew-type
2. vision-dominated animals with an expanded cortex of tree-shrew-type
3. acutely visioned, manually dexterous mammals of tarsius-type
4. monkeys
5. anthropoids using their hands to use and produce tools

Honours and awards

Smith was decorated by the

According to Smith, "Man did not become truly erect until his brain had developed in a very particular way to make it possible for him to use his hands". That line of reasoning reinforced the European origin of human, which Smith and Keith supported, as the mostly large brained specimens such as the Cro-Magnon had been found in Europe.^[13]

Hyperdiffusionism

The term '

Smith interpreted a small carving detail in Copán stela B as an elephant, an animal unknown in the New World. Alfred Maudslay had described the detail as being a stylized tapir. Smith argued that the carving shows an elephant with a mahout atop it. He went on to point out many Asian features in the sculpture in his book Elephants and ethnologists (1924).^[15]

Egypt

Egypt held a fortunate geographical position that made contacts to western Asia and the Mediterranean possible, while being safe from invasions. The fertile soil led to ample leisure, in art and the crafts could be cultivated. Smith believed that agriculture had originated in Egypt and only later spread to Mesopotamia. "The earliest cultivators of the soil in Egypt were in fact laying the foundations not merely of agriculture and irrigation but of all the arts and craft, the social organization and religious beliefs which became an integral part of the civilization that was being built up sixty centuries ago and in later ages was diffused throughout the world." (Smith 1911, 6)

Artificial irrigation led to cooperation and the development of a central

Other inventions of the Egyptians were:

• Weaving
• Metal working (gold and copper)
• Calendar
• Seagoing ships
• "Art of shaving"
• Wigs
• Hats
• Pillows

The invention of metallurgy was the most important, as it quickened the pace of invention, widened the scope of human endeavour, stimulated the advancement of arts and crafts, and awakened courage and the spirit of great adventure. The search for copper was to become the most important factor in the universal spread of civilisation. Prospectors settled in foreign countries and introduced agriculture, burial customs, and their religion as well.

At first, Smith remained vague on the reasons for the spread of Egyptian influence to places without mineral deposits like Polynesia. However, in 1915 William James Perry, a professor of comparative religion at the University of Manchester, advanced the view that the "megalith-builders" were looking for pearls and precious stones, which Smith adopted as well.

Smith did not believe that the spread of culture was necessarily connected to a certain race, in contrast to other diffusionists, like the German prehistorian Gustaf Kossinna. While he saw a racial affinity between the Egyptians and the first agriculturalists of southern Europe, both being of the "brown race," the spread of civilisation was mainly a spread of ideas, not of tribes or people.

However, in The Ancient Egyptians and their Influence Upon the Civilization of Europe, written in 1911, he clearly demonstrates a steep rise in "Asiatic traits (Armenoid, Alpine, Celtic)," within the Egyptian aristocracy, to Dynastic Egypt itself (amongst other pre-historical phenomena).

History

In the age of Colonialism, hyperdiffusionism proved attractive, as it showed how missionaries, engineers and prospectors had spread civilisation all over the earth, as the colonial nations believed that they were doing themselves.

Later on, hyperdiffusionism supplied a single simple explanation of the complex process of neolithisation that made it attractive to amateur archaeologists worldwide. It could be used to retain a Eurocentric view on history in the face of increasing evidence for impressive autochthonous development, such as in Zimbabwe (Great Zimbabwe), Polynesia (Easter Island), and Micronesia (Nan Madol on the island of Pohnpei).

Now, it is widely believed that the megalithic graves of Britain, Ireland, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, northern Germany, and Poland are much older than the Egyptian pyramids, and the Mesoamerican pyramids are more recent and considered to be local cultural innovations.

Private life

His father had migrated to New South Wales from London. He had attended a working men's college under John Ruskin and later became a teacher and headmaster in Grafton, New South Wales. His older brother (Stephen H. Smith) was later Director of Education in New South Wales; his younger brother (Stewart Arthur Smith) was Acting Professor of Anatomy at the University of Sydney.^[16]

He married Kathleen Macreadie in 1902 just before moving to Cairo. During his time in London, he lived variously in Hampstead, Gower Street, and at Regent's Park. During his London years, he became a friend of W. H. R. Rivers.

Smith's youngest son, Stephen Smith, died in an accident in 1936. Smith spent his final year in a nursing home in London.

Grafton Smith died on New Year's Day 1 January 1937 at Broadstairs in Kent.^[17]

Bibliography

• The Natural Subdivision of the Cerebral Hemisphere (1901).
• The Primary Subdivisions of the Mammalian Cerebellum (1902).
• The Ancient Egyptians and the origin of Civilization (London/New York, Harper & Brother 1911).
• Catalogue of the Royal Mummies in the Museum of Cairo (Cairo 1912).
• The Migrations of Early Culture (1915)
• On the Significance of the geographical distribution of Mummification – a study of the migrations of peoples and the spread of certain customs and beliefs (1916).
• The Evolution of the Dragon (1919)
• (with T. H. Pear) Shell Shock and its Lessons (1917, 2nd edition)
• Tutankhamen and the Discovery of his Tomb (1923)
• Evolution of Man: Essays (1924, 2nd edition 1927)
• Human History (1930)
• The Diffusion of Culture (London, Watts 1933)
• Elephants and Ethnologists (1924)
• Serle, Percival (1949). "Smith, Grafton Elliot". Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus & Robertson.
• A. P. Elkin/N. W. G. Macintosh, Grafton Elliot Smith, The Man and his Work (Sydney University Press 1974)
• W. R. Dawson, Sir Grafton Elliot Smith: a Biographical Record by his Colleagues (London, Cape 1938)

References