Jakarta – On February 3, 1925, a newspaper in South Africa reported a claim of a fossil discovery that featured combined human and ape traits. Archaeologists who analyzed the ‘Taung Child’ or ‘Anak Taung’ believed that the fossil was an ancestor of modern humans.
Anthropologist Raymond Dart, who was also a professor of anatomy, had the opportunity to examine the skull. The skull was said to have been excavated in a limestone mine near the village of Taung, South Africa, and was still partially encased in rock when Dart received it.
After carefully removing the excess limestone and analyzing the previously undiscovered skull, he found that it was ‘missing’ some features present in living ape species, but had a jawbone, teeth, and a transition from the eye socket to the forehead that all looked ‘very similar’ to humans. The teeth also led Dart to confirm that the skull belonged to a child.
In a report published in Nature four days after the newspaper article, Dart concluded one important point.
“This specimen is significant because it shows a now-extinct ape race that was a transition between the living anthropoids and humans,” he said.
In other words, he believed it to be what is called a ‘missing link’ in the family tree between living apes and Homo sapiens. Dart named the species Australopithecus africanus, and if he was correct about its origins, the Taung Child would be the first fossil of a human ancestor found in Africa and the first in its genus.
However, the anatomical expert’s conclusion faced considerable rejection. While modern scientists tend to agree that A. africanus may have been a side branch in human evolution and not the direct ancestor of Homo sapiens, scientists in the 1920s had other reasons for rejecting Dart’s conclusion.
According to IFLScience, one of the reasons was the widespread scientific racism. Despite Charles Darwin’s hypothesis that Africa was the birthplace of humanity, many scientists firmly believed that humans must have originated in Europe or Asia.
“The prevailing thought at the time was that Africa was somewhat backward,” said anthropologist and National Geographic Explorer Keneiloe Molopyane to National Geographic.
“So, why would you find the origins of humanity in a place like that?” she continued.
In the end, the ‘Taung Child’ fossil is now believed by scientists to be the skull of a young Australopithecus africanus, a branch in human evolution. The initial doubts were due to the lack of fossil evidence at the time. The discovery of the ‘Taung Child’ fossil has become one of the most dramatic issues in the world of archaeology.
