1910–1911
Britannica 11th
Encyclopaedia Britannica · 11th edition
ATAVISM (from Lat. atiiviis, a great-great-great-grandfather or ancestor), the term given in biology to the reproduction in a living person or animal of the characteristics of an ancestor more remote than its parents (see HEREDITY). Loosely used, it connotes a reversion to an earlier type. Individuals reproduce unexpectedly the traits of earlier ancestors, and ethnologists and criminologists frequently explain by " atavism " the occurrence of degenerate species of man; but the whole subject is complicated by other …
- Source status
- OCR text aligned to scanned pages
- Pages
- Vol. 2, pp. 823-823