Sir Grafton Elliot Smith (15 August 1871 – 1 January 1937) was an Australian-British anatomist, Egyptologist and a proponent of the hyperdiffusionist view of prehistory. He believed in the idea that cultural innovations occur only once and that they spread geographically. Based on this, he traced the origins of many cultural and traditional practices across the world, including the New World, to ideas that he believed came from Egypt and in some instances from Asia. An expert on brain anatomy, he was one of the first to study Egyptian mummies using radiological techniques. He took an interest in extinct humanoids and was embroiled in controversy over the authenticity of the Piltdown Man.
Professional career Smith was born in Grafton, New South Wales to Stephen Sheldrick Smith who had moved to Australia from London in 1860 and Mary Jane, née Evans. He received his early education from Grafton Public School where his father was headmaster. When the family moved to Sydney in 1883 he went to Darlington Public School before joining Sydney Boys High School. He attended evening classes on physiology by Thomas Anderson Stuart and took an early interest in biology. In an autobiographical note Smith noted that Stuart had shown them the convolutions of the human brain and declared that nobody understood them fully. Smith decided at that point that he would work towards understanding them. Accordingly, he went to study medicine at the University of Sydney in 1888 and received a Doctor of Medicine in 1895, with a dissertation on the fore-brain of the monotremes) and developed an interest in the anatomy of the human brain. He received a James King travelling scholarship and went to St John's College, Cambridge, graduating BA in 1896. Afterwards he catalogued the human brain-collection of the British Museum. Smith obtained an appointment at the Cairo School of Medicine in 1900 on the suggestion of his anthropologist friend Alexander Macalister. Smith became archaeological advisor to the archaeological survey of Nubia in the wake of plans to construct the Aswan Dam which threatened to drown numerous archaeological sites. Smith conducted investigations on the brains of Egyptian mummies. He was one of the first to non-destructively use x-rays to study mummies. Smith took a special interest in the pathologies indicated in ancient skeletal remains. He noted for instance that many Egyptian skulls had biparietal thinning which had been common in European aristocrats in the past. Smith hypothesized this was the result of wearing heavy wigs or headgear. From 1909 to 1919 he was Professor in anatomy in Manchester, 1919–1937 he held the chair of Anatomy at the University College London. He was elected President of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1924 to 1927. During World War I he took an interest in the neurology of shell shock, visiting military hospitals and serving on the British General Medical Council. Smith was the leading specialist on the evolution of the brain of his day. 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:
a smell-dominated insectivore of the jumping shrew-type vision-dominated animals with an expanded cortex of tree-shrew-type acutely visioned, manually dexterous mammals of tarsius-type monkeys anthropoids using their hands to use and produce tools
Honours and awards Smith was decorated by the Khedive of Egypt, Abbas Hilmy in 1909 with an Insignia of the Third Class of the Imperial Ottoman Order of the Osmaniah. He became Fellow of the Royal Society in 1907, FRCP, elected to membership of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society on 4 October 1910, President of the Society 1919, cross of the French Legion of Honour, and was knighted in the 1934 Birthday Honours. In 1912 he received the Royal Medal of the Royal Society, in 1930 the Honorary Gold Medal of the Royal College of Surgeons, in 1936 the Huxley Memorial Medal from the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland.
European hypothesis British anthropologists Arthur Keith and Grafton Elliot Smith both supported the European origin of humankind as opposed to models of Asian and African origin. In several of his works, Smith argued that Europe was the cradle of humanity, identifying a European Mediterranean race as the occupants of the original home of modern humans. His cradle was large, as he claimed the Mediterranean race had occupied the Levant, Egypt and western Europe, including the British Isles. He especially linked the Mediterranean race to the civilisation of Egypt. Smith's arguments later became known as his theory of diffusionism. According to Smith and William James Perry, Egypt was the source of all cultural innovations and the ultimate source of human civilisation. 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.
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