Frederic Wood Jones

Frederic Wood Jones FRS (January 23, 1879 – September 29, 1954), usually referred to as Wood Jones, was a British observational naturalist, embryologist, anatomist and anthropologist, who spent considerable time in Australia.

Biography

Jones was born in London, England, and wrote extensively on early humans, including their arboreal adaptations (Arboreal Man), and was one of the founding fathers of the field of modern physical anthropology. A friend of Le Gros Clark, Wood Jones was also known for his controversial belief in the view that acquired traits could be inherited, and thus his opposition to Darwinism. He taught anatomy and physical anthropology at London School of Medicine for Women, University of Adelaide, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, University of Melbourne, University of Manchester and the Royal College of Surgeons of England.

Jones was elected a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London (FZS) in 1903. He was president of the Royal Society of South Australia in 1927, and was awarded the RM Johnston Memorial Medal by The Royal Society of Tasmania in 1925, the Mueller Medal by the Australian and New Zealand Association for the Advancement of Science in 1926, and the Clarke Medal by the Royal Society of New South Wales in 1941. He was elected President of the Anatomical Society of Great Britain and Ireland for 1943 to 1945.

In 1910 in London, he married Gertrude Clunies-Ross, the fourth daughter of George Clunies-Ross. She was subsequently a Fellow of the Zoological Society of London and only the second woman to be the society's librarian.

Tarsian hypothesis

"Wood Jones, prior to the 1930s, promoted that the human line evolved from a very generalized primate from which avoided going through a hominoid ape stage.