Taung Child
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| Catalog number | Taung 1 |
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| 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) described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925.
The skull is in repository at the University of Witwatersrand.[citation needed]
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[edit] History
In the early 20th century, workers at limestone quarries in southern Africa routinely uncovered fossils from the tufa formations they mined. Many were of extinct fauna, which included baboons and other primates, and the more complete or somehow more interesting fossils were kept as curios by the Europeans that managed operations. In 1924, workers at the Buxton Limeworks near Taung, South Africa showed a fossilized primate skull to E.G. Izod, the visiting director of the Northern Lime Company, the managing company of the quarry. The director gave it to his son, Pat Izod, who displayed it on the mantle over the fireplace. When Josephine Salmons, a friend of the Izod family, paid a visit to Pat's home, she noticed the primate skull, identified it as from an extinct monkey, and realized its possible significance to her mentor, Dr. Raymond Dart.[1]
Josephine Salmons was the first female student of Dr. Dart, an anatomist at the University of Witwatersrand. Salmons was permitted to take the fossilized skull and presented it to Dr. Dart, who also recognized it as a significant find. Dart asked the company to send any more interesting fossilized skulls that should be unearthed. When a consulting geologist named Robert Young paid a visit to the quarry office, he relieved the manager, A.E. Spiers, of a collection of fossilized primate skulls that had been gathered by a miner known as Mr. De Bruyn. Young sent all the skulls back to Dart.[1]
When Dart examined the contents of the crate, he found a fossilized endocast of a skull, showing the impression of a complex brain, and matched it to a fossilized skull of a juvenile primate, which had a shallow face and fairly small teeth.[1] After a complete examination, he published the discovery in 1925, describing the new species of Australopithecus in the journal Nature. It was soon nicknamed the Taung Child. 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.[2]
[edit] Description
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 was originally thought to be about six years old because of the presence of deciduous teeth, but is now believed to have been 3–4 based on studies of rates of enamel deposition. It was a creature standing 3' 6" (105 cm) and weighing about 20–24 pounds (9–11 kg). 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 on the Turkana Boy fossil discovered in 1984.
In early 2006 it was announced that the Taung Child was probably 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.[3]
[edit] See also
- Selam (Australopithecus)
- List of human evolution fossils
- List of fossil sites (with link directory)
[edit] References
- ^ a b c McKee, Jeffrey K.. The Riddled Chain: Chance, Coincindence, and Chaos in Human Evolution. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press. pp. 40-41.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Downloadable 30-minute analysis by the BBC
[edit] 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
