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42     CURRENT BIOGAPHY

COON, CARLETON, S. - Continued

6,050 B.C. by measuring the radioactive carbon they contained. This method of Carbon-14 dating to determine the age of ancient objects was inaugurated by Dr. Willard F. Libby (see C.B., 1954) at the University of Chicago. Specimens from Belt Cave, consisting of charred bone, were among the first that Dr. Libby studied. From the thousands of animal bones dug up it appears, according to Dr. Coon, that the goat was the earliest animal to be domesticated, followed closely by the sheep, and that the pig and ox came later (Archaeology, Summer 1951).

Returning to Iran in 1951, Dr. Coon and his colleague, Louis Dupree, excavated Hotu Cave (so called because when a visitor shouts "Ho!" it echoes "Tu!"). The immensely thick deposits showed almost continuous occupation, "a complete and unbroken cultural sequence through the Iron Age, Bronze (or Copper) Age, and Neolithic or New Stone Age. Below the latter was a layer of fallen rock, debris from a collapse of the cave ceiling some time before 10,000 B.C. Below this fallen rock were layers of sands and gravels dating from the last glacial period. At a depth of thirty-nine feet, in a deposit of hard-packed gravel, there appeared the fossilized bones of human beings" (Archaeology, Summer 1951).

Photographs and descriptions of these "geologically ancient skeletons" (two women and one man) appeared in Life (May 21, 1951) and in archaeological and anthropological journals including the bulletin of the Philadelphia Anthropological Society (May 1951) and the Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (June 20, 1952). Dr. Coon concluded from the Iranian cave skeletons that a true Homo sapiens may prove to have been much older than subhuman types, which had been found elsewhere, such as the 50,000-year-old Neanderthal man. "We have proven," he said, "that men of human type existed contemporaneously with more primitive forms elsewhere. . . . Here we are on the main line of evolution" (Time, May 7,  1951). This view is held by some other scholars.

Dr. Coon wrote in The Story of Man: "The skeletons . . . cover in all probability the same period [at the end of the Ice Age], though we are not yet certain about the age of all of them. They represent tall, lanky people with strong chins and narrow noses, though all were by no means alike. . . .  These people had much in common with present-day Nordics."

As discussed by John J. O'Neill (New York Herald Tribune, July 20, 1952), "instead of a genetically pure human race supposed to have existed in ancient days and from which the present variegated inhabitants of the earth descended, these well-preserved skeletons . . . clinch the demonstration that thousands of years ago man had as mixed a genetical composition as he has today, and that small inbred groups can show wide variations."

Among Dr. Coon's books, some of which are used as college textbooks, are: Tribes of the Rif (Peabody Museum, 1931); Flesh of the Wild Ox (Morrow, 1932); Measuring Ethiopia and Flight into Arabia (Little, 1935); Races of Europe (Macmillan, 1939, 1954); Principles of Anthropology, written in collaboration with Eliot D. Chapple (Holt, 1942; J. Cape, 1948, 1953); Races, written with other authors (Thomas, 1950); and Cave Explorations in Iran, 1949 (University of Pennsylvania Museum, 1951).

His book, Caravan: The Story of the Middle East (Holt, 1951) received favorable reviews. The New York Times (November 25, 1951) reviewer wrote: "A distinguished anthropologist draws on field experience stretching back nearly three decades for fascinating accounts of villagers, townsmen, mountaineers, herdsmen, men of the desert - and how they live. Honest borrowings from other scholars give his book the sparkling contrasts of good mosaic work."

In The Story of Man, Dr. Coon reveals the immense new knowledge of the distant past which scientists have garnered since World War II: "It cannot be said that man is descended from apes," he wrote, "but rather that apes are descended from ground-living primates that almost became men." He explained why men are rulers of the earth. The apes became specialized. One type of ape stayed in the forest and developed powerful arms for tree to tree swinging. Others tried the grasslands and developed powerful jaws and teeth, the better to capture and kill land-roaming animals. Other primates "remained unspecialized in everything except those features that prepare them for human living" and became the ancestors of men. "As we know from history of extinct reptiles and mammals," Coon wrote, "lack of specialization is the key to survival past all kinds of changes of climate and terrain and to success in competition with other animals." 

Dr. Coon belongs to the American Anthropological Association, American Association of Physical Anthropologists, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of Sigma Xi. His clubs are the Cosmos (Washington, D.C.) and Franklin Inn (Philadelphia). Among Dr. Coon's honors are the Legion of Merit (1945) and the Viking Medal in Physical Anthropology (1952). He is also a Membre D'Honneur of the Association de la Libération Française du 8 Novembre, 1942. He has been a panel member on the Peabody Award-winning television program What in the World? between 1952 and 1955 when not away on expeditions. He is called "Cannon-ball Coon" by his associates.

In 1926 Dr. Coon married Mary Goodale, by whom he had two sons, Carleton S. and Charles Adams. This marriage was terminated. In 1945 he married Lisa Dougherty Geddes, who draws the maps for many of his books. He is a member of the Congregational church. Dr. Coon speaks ten languages, including the obscure tongues of desert tribes.

References
Sat R Lit 34:25 D 8 '51 por
Time 57:46 My 7 '51 por
Directory of American Scholars (1951)
Who's Who in America, 1954-55