Born in poverty in Scotland, Robert Broom went on to become a respected physician and renowned paleontologist who made important fossil discoveries as to the possible ancestors of human beings. Broom received his M.D. from the University of Glasgow, but it was during a trip to Australia in 1892 that he found his true calling as a paleontologist. After moving to South Africa in 1897, Broom joined the faculty at the University of Stellenbosch. However, he lost this position at the conservative religious institution because of his belief in the theory of evolution. Although he the worked as a physician, he devoted all his spare time to fossil hunting, conducting excavations staffed largely by volunteers who were attracted to his roguish personality. (Broom always wore a dark formal suit even while hunting for fossils, stripping naked when he got hot.)

Broom did his most notable work after reaching the...