2.96 to 3.03 million years ago, give or take, is the newly estimated age range for the Taung child, a 3-year-old fossil found in 1924 in South Africa.
The Taung Child’s Age Recalculated
Professor Gabriele Macho from the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and University College London led a study that dated the famed fossil using uranium-lead dating of a flowstone that overlies the fossil-bearing deposit. The Taung child, discovered at the Buxton Limeworks in South Africa, is the reference specimen for Australopithecus africanus.
According to Professor Macho, "For over 100 years, we assumed the Taung child was just one of many similar fossils from the era. Our findings turn that on its head. The human family tree wasn’t a neat, straight trunk — it was a chaotic, tangled bush driven by climate shifts."
Uncovering the Taung Child’s Significance
The fossilized anatomy represented the first time researchers saw evidence of early human upright, two-legged (bipedal) walking. The evidence was the position of the Taung Child’s foramen magnum, or the hole through which the spinal cord connects with the brain. This spinal cord hole is positioned toward the front of the Taung Child’s skull, a characteristic associated with bipedal locomotion.
The Taung child was found in 1924 and described a year later by the Australian anatomist and anthropologist Raymond Dart.
Australopithecus africanus Characteristics
Australopithecus africanus, to which the Taung child belongs, remains the only specimen that can be called, without dispute, Australopithecus africanus. This hominin was bipedal. They possessed smaller molars and larger canines, indicating a varied diet of tough vegetation and softer foods.
Dental Development Indicates the Child Was 3.3 Years Old
The Taung Child’s first molars had only just begun to erupt through the gum and become visible as teeth, indicating that the fossilized jaw belongs to a child. Closer analysis of dental development, crown formation, and root length has estimated the child’s age at death at 3.3 years.
The shape of the boundary between the child’s tooth enamel and dentine falls at the edge of the Australopithecus africanus range, roughly equidistant from a fossil of the species and one of the robust relative Paranthropus robustus.
Climate’s Role in Hominin Diversity
The study suggests that southeastern Africa was more climatically variable between 4 and 2.5 million years ago than in the following million years or so. Pollen from two unprovenanced samples near the Taung flowstone indicates a wetter, more wooded landscape than today’s semi-arid savanna. The scientists propose that hominin populations tracked shifting habitats across a biogeographic boundary near the Limpopo River, which could have encouraged genetic drift and hybridization.
The Taung Child’s Final Moments
The Taung child is thought to have been attacked and killed by an eagle. Scientists suspect an eagle killed the Taung Child because puncture marks were found at the bottom of the 3-year-old’s eye sockets.
These marks resemble those made by a modern eagle’s sharp talons and beak when they attack monkeys in Africa today. Other evidence for the eagle kill hypothesis includes the presence of eggshells at the site and an unusual mixture of animals bones found alongside the Taung Child’s skull.
"A century after its discovery, the Taung child continues to reshape our understanding of how diverse 3-million-year-old hominin populations eventually gave rise to our own genus, Homo," Professor Macho and his colleagues noted. The research, described in a paper in the journal npj Palaeoecosystems, underscores the significance of the Taung child in understanding human evolution.
In 1925, just a year after its discovery, the Taung child was described by the Australian anatomist and anthropologist Raymond Dart.