Question

First fossil of African Ape Man was discovered by
A. E. Dubois
B. Arthur Keith
C. Dr. Leakey
D. Raymond Dart

Answer 1

Ape man is referred to creatures that have characteristics of modern humans and that of apes like chimpanzees and gorillas. That is to say, Ape man is an evolutionary intermediate between the apes and modern humans.

Complete answer:
In 1891, Eugene Dubois unearthed the earliest known fossil of African Ape man in Java. He named the species Pithecanthropus erectus.

Arthur Keith was an anthropologist and took great interest in human evolution. He is known to reconstruct early hominid forms, especially fossils from Europe and North Africa.

Dr. Leakey was a paleoanthropologist whose research and studies led to the conclusion that humans evolved in Africa. He is also noted for conducting extensive research of primates in their wild habitats.

Raymond Dart is a celebrated anthropologist and anatomist who discovered the earliest fossil of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominid, related closely to humans.

Therefore, option (A) is correct.

Additional information: Evolution can be defined as the process by which there is a change in the heritable characteristic of a species. This happens over several generations. Charles Darwin first studied the process of evolution and presented his Theory of Evolution in a book called ‘On the origin of Species’ in 1859.
The process of human evolution spans through many decades and leading to the emergence of modern man. The study of human evolution is an interdisciplinary study that involves many branches of science like genetics, anthropology, primatology, paleontology, linguistics among others.
These studies show that modern man has evolved from the great apes.
We get to know about the ape man from the writings from Ernst Haeckel – one of Darwin’s supporters. Since then many researchers have studied and at present we know about our line of descent.

Note:
Modern humans and apes shared a common ancestor around 5-8 million years ago. There came a point in time when two lineages diverged from the species. One is of course the hominid lineage that gave rise to modern man. The other, however, gave rise to chimpanzees and gorillas of the present day.