11 - The Road to Homo sapiens

Artist: Rudolph Zallinger
Year: 1965
You'd think the gigantic mural that is easily the most monumental reconstruction of ancient life and that revived the fresco secco style would be the most influential work by its artist, but The Road to Homo sapiens (more widely known as The March of Progress) surpasses it by far. In fact, while it may be impossible to quantify such things, it is almost certainly the most influential work of paleoart ever produced; it's certainly the most reproduced and parodied. Zallinger's intent, as described by the author of the book in which it was published, was to distill the complex story of human evolution as it was then understood into an easily understandable image. In a sense, it was a phenomenal success, as it very clearly conveys the connections and similarities between modern humans and our extinct relatives. Unfortunately, while it conveyed the connection of our species to our hominid relatives better than anyone could have predicted, it was not so effective at illustrating the complexity of the evolution of apes. Our particular corner of the primate evolutionary tree is a complex one, with numerous branches arising in the past, but with only one surviving today. Instead of glorious complexity, The Road to Homo sapiens seems to imply that human evolution was a straight line from Pliopithecus to our species. There's good reason to believe that Zallinger himself did not hold this view, but his work is often taken to imply that evolution is a linear progression towards a "more evolved" goal (in this case, us). The image is frequently used to lampoon evolutionary theory, a fact that no doubt has Zallinger spinning in his grave. It is also true, though, that the very fact anti-evolution groups set it up as a straw man is a testament to just how clearly the image depicts the concept of evolution. So, next time you see The Road to Homo sapiens doctored for a t-shirt or an advertising campaign, between eye rolls spare a thought for the Seattle-born artist that created the single most indelible image of biology's unifying theory.
Want to see more? The image was originally published in Early Man in the Life Nature Library, but if you want to get a taste of the myriad reproductions Zallinger spawned, just do a Google image search for "evolution."