BONES AND BODIES, how South African scientists studied race

338pp., illus., paperback, Johannesburg, 2022

Alan Morris on the past century of anthropological discovery in South Africa. He evaluates the work of Raymond Dart, Thomas Dreyer, Matthew Drennan, Robert Broom and others, and demonstrates how, in the 1960s and 1970s, Ronald Singer and Phillip Tobias introduced modern methods that disputed much of what the public believed about race and human evolution.

"This informative and insightful history of physical anthropology in South Africa is written by someone with intimate knowledge of the discipline. Rich in detail and anecdote, and never ponderous, it is an excellent read. In the contemporary moment of decolonial and Black Lives Matter thinking, it has particular resonance." Saul Dubow, Smuts Professor of Commonwealth History, Cambridge University

"Bones and Bodies is a valuable insider perspective on the science, personalities and scholarship of physical anthropology as it developed in South Africa. Alan Morris is particularly attentive to the role that the discipline has played in changing and creating the problematic perceptions of self and other that persist in the contemporary moment." Amanda Esterhuysen, Associate Professor of Archaeology and Head of the Origins Centre, University of the Witwatersrand

Alan G. Morris is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Human Biology at the University of Cape Town.