André Werner Keyser (8 March 1938,

Pretoria Pretoria ( ; ) is the Capital of South Africa, administrative capital of South Africa, serving as the seat of the Executive (government), executive branch of government, and as the host to all foreign embassies to the country. Pretoria strad ...

– 15 August 2010, Pretoria), was a South African

palaeontologist Paleontology, also spelled as palaeontology or palæontology, is the scientific study of the life of the past, mainly but not exclusively through the study of fossils. Paleontologists use fossils as a means to classify organisms, measure geolo ...

and

geologist A geologist is a scientist who studies the structure, composition, and History of Earth, history of Earth. Geologists incorporate techniques from physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics, and geography to perform research in the Field research, ...

noted for his discovery of the

Drimolen The Drimolen Palaeocave System consists of a series of terminal Pliocene to early Pleistocene hominin-bearing palaeocave fills located around north of Johannesburg, South Africa, and about north of Sterkfontein in the UNESCO World Heritage Site ...

hominid site and of numerous hominid remains. In 1994 he discovered a female ''

Paranthropus robustus ''Paranthropus robustus'' is a species of robust australopithecine from the Early and possibly Middle Pleistocene of the Cradle of Humankind, South Africa, about 2.27 to 0.87 (or, more conservatively, 2 to 1) million years ago. It has been ide ...

'' skull, nicknamed ''Eurydice'', the most complete

australopithecine The australopithecines (), formally Australopithecina or Hominina, are generally any species in the related genera of ''Australopithecus'' and ''Paranthropus''. It may also include members of '' Kenyanthropus'', ''Ardipithecus'', and '' Praeant ...

skull ever excavated. In 1997 he found two children’s skulls some 1.5 to 2 million years old. The children were under three years old at the time of their death, and were found at the Drimolen site near the

Sterkfontein Sterkfontein (Afrikaans for ''Strong Spring'') is a set of limestone caves of special interest in paleoanthropology located in Gauteng province, about northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa in the Muldersdrift area close to the town of K ...

Caves. In the 1930s Robert Broom, acting on a suggestion from a Transvaal Museum lepidopterist, was the first palaeontologist to visit

Gladysvale Cave Gladysvale Cave is a fossil-bearing breccia filled cave located about northeast of the well-known South African hominid-bearing sites of Sterkfontein and Swartkrans and about north-northwest of Johannesburg, South Africa. It is situated withi ...

, hoping to find a hominid fossil cave close to Johannesburg. In 1946

Phillip Tobias Phillip Vallentine Tobias (14 October 1925 – 7 June 2012) was a South African palaeoanthropologist and Professor Emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He was best known for his work at South Africa's hominid fossil ...

recovered a baboon fossil from the site. The 1948

Camp Camp may refer to: Areas of confinement, imprisonment, or for execution * Concentration camp, an internment camp for political prisoners or politically targeted demographics, such as members of national or minority ethnic groups * Extermination ...

- Peabody expedition from the United States failed to find any hominid remains. The site was then forgotten until 1991 when Lee Berger and Andre Keyser started excavations. They soon found two teeth of

Australopithecus africanus ''Australopithecus africanus'' is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. The species has been recovered from Taung, Sterkfontei ...

, making Gladysvale the first new hominid site in South Africa since the 1948 discovery of

Swartkrans Swartkrans or Swartkranz is a fossil-bearing cave designated as a National heritage sites (South Africa), South African National Heritage Site, located about from Johannesburg. It is located in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and is ...

Robert Broom Robert Broom Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS FRSE (30 November 1866 6 April 1951) was a British- South African medical doctor and palaeontologist. He qualified as a medical practitioner in 1895 and received his DSc in 1905 from the University ...

. Since then the site has yielded more than a quarter of a million fossils in excavations by teams from the

University of the Witwatersrand The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg (), commonly known as Wits University or Wits, is a multi-campus Public university, public research university situated in the northern areas of central Johannesburg, South Africa. The universit ...

, the

University of Zurich The University of Zurich (UZH, ) is a public university, public research university in Zurich, Switzerland. It is the largest university in Switzerland, with its 28,000 enrolled students. It was founded in 1833 from the existing colleges of the ...

and

Duke University Duke University is a Private university, private research university in Durham, North Carolina, United States. Founded by Methodists and Quakers in the present-day city of Trinity, North Carolina, Trinity in 1838, the school moved to Durham in 1 ...

. These fossils include, beside hominids, antelope, extinct wolves, giant zebra and monkeys. Dr Colin Menter from the

University of Johannesburg The University of Johannesburg, colloquially known as UJ, is a public university A public university, state university, or public college is a university or college that is State ownership, owned by the state or receives significant fundi ...

, commenting on the hominid fossils from Drimolen, stated: “''Discoveries at this site showed us that sex differences in Paranthropus robustus were greater than we had previously thought. While there are some specimens from Drimolen that are just as large and robust as those from other sites like Swartkrans, there is a complete female skull that is distinctly smaller than the other, well-preserved specimens of the species.''”

Personal life

Eldest of three sons of Gabriel Keyser and Adelheid Dorothea Giesekke, André Keyser was married to Josina/Sienie le Roux and lived in Meyerspark, Pretoria. They had two sons and two daughters (Helena, Gawie, Liesel and Andre). He was also a painter, with a strong influence of the nature of South Africa. His death was due to cancer.

References

External links

Image of EurydiceImage of Eurydice and Orpheus lower jaw
{{DEFAULTSORT:Keyser, Andre South African paleontologists 1938 births 2010 deaths Academic staff of the University of the Witwatersrand