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The Taung Child (or Taung Baby) is the fossilised skull of a young Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925. The Taung skull is in repository at the University of Witwatersrand. [1]
Further, the discovery of the humanlike Peking Man (Homo erectus pekinensis) in China also seemed to place the origins of humankind outside of Africa. Humanlike characteristics of the Taung child were attributed to the specimen's juvenile status, meaning they would disappear with maturity.
The Osteodontokeratic ("bone-tooth-horn", Greek and Latin derivation) culture (ODK) is a hypothesis that was developed by Prof. Raymond Dart (who identified the Taung child fossil in 1924, and published the find in Nature Magazine in 1925), [1] which detailed the predatory habits of Australopith species in South Africa involving the manufacture and use of osseous implements.
Raymond Arthur Dart (4 February 1893 – 22 November 1988) was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist, best known for his involvement in the 1924 discovery of the first fossil found of Australopithecus africanus, an extinct hominin closely related to humans, at Taung in the North of South Africa in the Northwest province.
The fossil skull was from a three-year-old bipedal primate (nicknamed Taung Child) that he named Australopithecus africanus. The first report was published in Nature in February 1925. Dart realised that the fossil contained a number of humanoid features, and so he came to the conclusion that this was an early human ancestor. [17]
The Sterkfontein Caves were the site of the discovery of a 2.3-million-year-old fossil Australopithecus africanus (nicknamed "Mrs. Ples"), found in 1947 by Robert Broom and John T. Robinson. The find helped corroborate the 1924 discovery by Raymond Dart of the juvenile Australopithecus africanus skull known as the " Taung Child " at Taung in ...
The Taung Child is among the most important early human fossils ever discovered. It was the first hominid to be discovered in Africa , a species later named Australopithecus africanus , supporting Charles Darwin 's concepts that the closest living relatives of humans are the African apes .
Sterkfontein, Cradle of Humankind Location in Gauteng Location Gauteng, South Africa Coordinates 26°00′57″S 27°44′05″E / 26.0157°S 27.7346°E / -26.0157; 27.7346 Established Declared a World Heritage Site in 2000 Governing body Cradle of Humankind Archaeologists in a structure above the entrance to Sterkfontein Sterkfontein (Afrikaans for Strong Spring) is a set of ...