Athena Review Image Archive ™
Taung skull of Australopithecus africanus
Skull of juvenile A. africanus fom Taung, South Africa (YPM cast; photo: Athena Review)
In
1924 Raymond Dart, a professor of anatomy, found a skullcap in a quarry
at Taung, South Africa that fit precisely over a brain-cast protruding
from the surface of one of the rocks. Once the skull was removed, it
was recognized by Dart to be a juvenile of an early hominin, which Dart
named Australopithecus africanus (“southern ape of Africa”).
In a 1925 paper published in Nature, Dart proposed that A. africanus represented a missing link between apes and humans, since it combined humanlike teeth and upright posture with a small cranial capacity.
References:
Dart, R. 1925. Nature
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