It posited the hypothesis that man evolved on the African continent from carnivorous, predatory ancestors who distinguished themselves from apes by the use of weapons.

Robert Ardrey, at the time a working playwright and screenwriter, travelled in 1955 to Africa, partly at the behest of Richard Foster Flint, to investigate claims made by Raymond Dart about a specimen of Australopithecus africanus.

[6]: 125–6 [7]: 41:20  His overall thesis was that "it was the ape-man's instinct for violence, and his successful development of lethal weapons, that gave him his dominance in the animal world from the very beginning.

After receiving significant attention the article was reprinted in Science Digest, which marked the beginning of the spread of popular notions about Australopithecus.

The article in Science Digest also led to The Smithsonian Institution contacting Dart and eventually providing him funding to continue his research.

[6]: 139–40 [9] Ardrey eventually came to be a vocal proponent of this thesis, introducing it, in modified form, to a broad audience with African Genesis.

He added to it his own ideas about the role of territory in human behavior, about hierarchy in social animals, and about the instinctual status of the urge to dominate one's fellows.

"[13] Following the publication of African Genesis Ardrey's theories became mired in controversy because of his notions about innate human violence and inherited instinctual aggression.

Following the 1961 publication of African Genesis the science of ethology, which is based on the methodological assumption of the cross-relevance of anthropology and zoology, underwent a massive flourishing.

Brain, for example, writes: African Genesis has, in all probability, been read by more people throughout the world than any other book on human evolution and the nature of man.

Paleoanthropologist Rick Potts, who has been the director of the Smithsonian Institution Museum of Natural History's Human Origins Program since 1985 points to African Genesis as one of the two most formative books of his early years.

[21][22] Nonetheless, the behavior of the apes in the "Dawn of Man" sequence of 2001 has since been "proven false", since violent apes such as these have now been shown to be "vegetarians" instead—according to archeologist K. Kris Hirst in reviewing the 2015 PBS documentary film Dawn of Humanity, which describes, directly in the context of 2001, the 2015 studies of fossils of Homo naledi.