Taung Child refers to the fossil of a skull specimen of Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in 1924 by quarryman working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart, an anatomist at the University of Witwatersrand, received the artifact, recognized its importance and published his discovery in the journal Nature in 1925, describing it as a new species. Unfortunately, the British 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 Raymond Dart's finding was not appreciated for decades.

Taung Child is believed to have been a three-year-old being at the time of its death 2.5 million years ago. It was a creature standing 3' 6" at approximately 75 pounds. Taung Child had a cranial capacity of 340cc, living mainly in a savanna habitat. Examinations of Taung Child compared to that of an equivalent 9-year-old child suggest that A. africanus had a growth rate to adolescence the same as in modern apes like chimpanzees (genus Pan) than compared with modern Homo sapiens. However intermediate species such as Homo ergaster/Homo erectus are thought to have gone through growths intermediate between modern humans and apes. The evidence has mostly been based on that of Turkana Boy discovered in 1984.

Its significance lies in the fact that this was the first of the fossils which had been found in the twenties and thirties to prove that the human race does indeed have a 'natural history' all of its own - just as Darwin had predicted. (Which is not quite the same as accepting Darwinism for an explanation of the relationship between the australopithecines and the hominids - which Darwin never offered -, but it does lay down the time-scales and the factual basis for a discussion about our own ancestors which includes 'proto-culture' as one of the variables in such a 'reconstruction' of our collective past.)

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 to the skulls of primates known to have been killed by modern eagles.

The skull is now (as of 2006) exhibited at the Maropeng visitor's centre at the Cradle of Humankind.

History of South Africa | Anthropology | ArchaeologyNorth West Province

Neno de Taung

External links

• Downloadable 30 minute analysis by the BBC

Taungi gyermek | Taung kind