page_title: Taung Child
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Taung Child / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Cast in three parts: endocranium face and mandible, of a 2.1 million year old Australopithecus africanus specimen so-called Taung child, discovered in South Africa. Collection of the University of the Witwatersrand (Evolutionary Studies Institute), Johannesburg, South Africa. Sterkfontein cave, hominid fossil Français&#160;: Moulage en trois parties&#160;: endocrâne, face et mandibule, de l’enfant de Taung. Un spécimen d'Australopithecus africanus de 2,1 millions d'années découvert en Afrique du Sud. Collection de l'Université du Witwatersrand (Evolutionary Studies Institute), Johannesburg, Afrique du Sud. Grotte de Sterkfontein, fossile d'hominidé
context_page_description: The Taung Child 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. Dean Falk, a specialist in brain evolution, has called it "the most important anthropological fossil of the twentieth century."
context_section_description: In the early 20th century, the workers at limestone quarries in Southern Africa routinely uncovered fossils from the tufa formations that they mined. The tufa did not form consistently, and over time cavities were left open and they became beneficial areas for animals to take shelter in. As a result, many bones began to build up in these areas. These areas were mostly sandstone, and they stood in the way of successful mining. So, miners would use explosives to clear these areas, and discard all the debris. However, many fossils began to show up, and these were saved by many of the miners. Many were of extinct fauna, which included baboons and other primates, and the more complete or somehow more interesting fossils were kept as curiosities by the Europeans who managed operations.
  In 1924, workers at the Buxton Limeworks, near Taung, 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 realised its possible significance to her mentor, Raymond Dart.
  Salmons was the first female student of Dart, an anatomist at the University of Witwatersrand. Salmons was permitted to take the fossilized skull and presented it to Dart, who also recognized it as a significant find. Dart asked the company to send any more interesting fossilized skulls that were unearthed. When a consulting geologist, Robert Young, paid a visit to the quarry office, the director, A. E. Speirs, presented him with a collection of fossilised primate skulls that had been gathered by a miner, Mr. De Bruyn. A. E. Speirs was using a particular fossil as a paperweight, and Young asked him for this as well. Young sent some of the skulls back to Dart. When Dart examined the contents of the crate, he found a fossilized endocast of a skull showing the impression of a complex brain. He quickly searched through the rest of the fossils in the crates, and matched it to a fossilized skull of a juvenile primate, which had a shallow face and fairly small teeth.
  Only forty days after he first saw the fossil, Dart completed a paper that named the species of Australopithecus africanus, the "southern ape from Africa", and described it as "an extinct race of apes intermediate between living anthropoids and man". The paper appeared in the 7 February 1925 issue of the journal Nature. The fossil was soon nicknamed the Taung Child.
caption: Taung-1 front
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