Taung Child

Taung Child

Catalog number	Taung 1
Common name	Taung Child
Species	Australopithecus africanus
Age	2.5 mya
Place discovered	Taung, South Africa
Date discovered	1924

The Taung Child — or Taung Baby — is the fossilized skull of a young Australopithecus africanus individual. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart (1893-1988), an anatomist at the University of Witwatersrand, received the fossil, recognized its importance and published his discovery in the journal Nature in 1925, describing it as a new species. The British scientific establishment was at the time enamored with the hoax Piltdown man, which had a large brain and ape-like teeth – the exact opposite of the Taung Child – and Dart's interpretation was not appreciated for decades.^[1] The skull is in repository at the University of Witwatersrand.^{[citation needed]}

Description

Taung-1 front

Dr. Philip V. Tobias and the Taung Child

The fossil consists of most of the face and mandible with teeth and, uniquely, a natural endocast of the braincase. It is estimated to be 2.5 million years old. Originally thought to have been a monkey or ape, Dart realized that the skull would have been positioned directly above the spine, indicating an upright posture. This is a trait seen in humans, but not other primates.

The Taung Child is believed to have been about 3 years old at the time of its death. It was a creature standing 3' 6" (105 cm) and weighing about 20-24 pounds. It had a cranial capacity of 340 cc and lived mainly in a savanna habitat. Examinations of the Taung Child fossil compared to that of an equivalent 9 year old child suggest that A. africanus had a growth rate to adolescence more similar to that of modern apes like chimpanzees (genus Pan) than to that of modern Homo sapiens. However, intermediate species such as Homo ergaster/Homo erectus are thought to have gone through growth rates intermediate between modern humans and apes. This conclusion has mostly been based the Turkana Boy fossil discovered in 1984.

In early 2006 it was announced that the Taung Child was likely killed by an eagle or similar large predatory bird. This conclusion was reached by noting similarities in the damage to the skull and eye sockets of the Taung Child with damage to the skulls of modern primates known to have been killed by eagles.^[2]

See also

• Selam (Australopithecus)
• List of human evolution fossils
• List of fossil sites (with link directory)

References

1. ^ Brain, C.K. Raymond Dart and our African Origins, in A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World, Laura Garwin and Tim Lincoln, eds.
2. ^ Downloadable 30 minute analysis by the BBC

External links

• Brain, C.K. Raymond Dart and our African Origins, in A Century of Nature: Twenty-One Discoveries that Changed Science and the World, Laura Garwin and Tim Lincoln, eds.
• "Images of Taung 1". http://www.mnh.si.edu/anthro/humanorigins/ha/taung1.html. Retrieved 2006-07-13. 
• Maropeng - The Cradle of Humankind Official Website
• Downloadable 30 minute analysis by the BBC