* . *
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact
Monday, June 23, 2025
Earth-News
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Netflix unveils Dallas immersive venue for fans of hit shows like ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Houston Chronicle

    Step Inside Netflix’s New Dallas Immersive Experience Featuring Hits Like ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Stranger Things

    ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’: Civic Players bring ‘Young Frankenstein’ to life – Yahoo

    Civic Players Deliver a Hilarious and Unforgettable Performance of ‘Young Frankenstein

    ‘Wheel of Fortune’: Amputee Wins $60,000 After Breaking Incredible ‘Curse’ – Hastings Tribune

    Wheel of Fortune’ Amputee Breaks Incredible ‘Curse’ to Win $60,000!

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    Safety concerns in Deep Ellum create apprehension as the entertainment district gains visitors – CBS News

    Safety Concerns Surge Amid Deep Ellum’s Booming Popularity and Growing Crowds

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Promising Technology Stocks To Follow Today – June 22nd – MarketBeat

    Top Technology Stocks to Watch Today – June 22nd

    Technology Convergence Report 2025 – The World Economic Forum

    Technology Convergence Report 2025 – The World Economic Forum

    How AI can help make cities work better for residents – MIT Technology Review

    How AI can help make cities work better for residents – MIT Technology Review

    Tech Champions with Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions – Buzz Media Group

    Meet Tech Champion Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions

    Crypto’s true revolution is about humanity, not technology – Cointelegraph

    Crypto’s Real Revolution: Transforming Humanity Beyond Technology

    $1 Billion Problem: New Technology Could Save Your Daily Cup of Coffee – SciTechDaily

    The $1 Billion Challenge: How New Technology Could Rescue Your Daily Cup of Coffee

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • Business
  • Entertainment
    Netflix unveils Dallas immersive venue for fans of hit shows like ‘Squid Game,’ ‘Stranger Things’ – Houston Chronicle

    Step Inside Netflix’s New Dallas Immersive Experience Featuring Hits Like ‘Squid Game’ and ‘Stranger Things

    ‘Puttin’ on the Ritz’: Civic Players bring ‘Young Frankenstein’ to life – Yahoo

    Civic Players Deliver a Hilarious and Unforgettable Performance of ‘Young Frankenstein

    ‘Wheel of Fortune’: Amputee Wins $60,000 After Breaking Incredible ‘Curse’ – Hastings Tribune

    Wheel of Fortune’ Amputee Breaks Incredible ‘Curse’ to Win $60,000!

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    North Star Sports & Entertainment Network: Coming soon – KTTC News

    Safety concerns in Deep Ellum create apprehension as the entertainment district gains visitors – CBS News

    Safety Concerns Surge Amid Deep Ellum’s Booming Popularity and Growing Crowds

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

    Elisabeth Moss’ ‘Handmaid’s Tale’ Emmy chances, by the numbers – Yahoo

  • General
  • Health
  • News

    Cracking the Code: Why China’s Economic Challenges Aren’t Shaking Markets, Unlike America’s” – Bloomberg

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Trump’s Narrow Window to Spread the Truth About Harris

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    Israel-Gaza war live updates: Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh assassinated in Iran, group says

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    PAP Boss to Niger Delta Youths, Stay Away from the Protest

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Court Restricts Protests In Lagos To Freedom, Peace Park

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Fans React to Jazz Jennings’ Inspiring Weight Loss Journey

    Trending Tags

    • Trump Inauguration
    • United Stated
    • White House
    • Market Stories
    • Election Results
  • Science
  • Sports
  • Technology
    Promising Technology Stocks To Follow Today – June 22nd – MarketBeat

    Top Technology Stocks to Watch Today – June 22nd

    Technology Convergence Report 2025 – The World Economic Forum

    Technology Convergence Report 2025 – The World Economic Forum

    How AI can help make cities work better for residents – MIT Technology Review

    How AI can help make cities work better for residents – MIT Technology Review

    Tech Champions with Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions – Buzz Media Group

    Meet Tech Champion Leo Bletnitsky of Healthy Technology Solutions

    Crypto’s true revolution is about humanity, not technology – Cointelegraph

    Crypto’s Real Revolution: Transforming Humanity Beyond Technology

    $1 Billion Problem: New Technology Could Save Your Daily Cup of Coffee – SciTechDaily

    The $1 Billion Challenge: How New Technology Could Rescue Your Daily Cup of Coffee

    Trending Tags

    • Nintendo Switch
    • CES 2017
    • Playstation 4 Pro
    • Mark Zuckerberg
No Result
View All Result
Earth-News
No Result
View All Result
Home Science

Famous Taung Child fossil from South Africa is 2.58 million years old, new study finds

July 18, 2024
in Science
Famous Taung Child fossil from South Africa is 2.58 million years old, new study finds
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

A reproduction of the Taung child skull against a black background.

A reproduction of the Taung child skull. The Taung child was an Australopithecus africanus who lived over 2 million years ago.
(Image credit: Peter Horree / Alamy Stock Photo)

One hundred years ago the discovery of a skull in South Africa’s North West province altered our understanding of human evolution. The juvenile skull was dubbed the Taung Child by Raymond Dart, an anatomist at the University of the Witwatersrand, who first described it. In 1924 Dart could not say exactly how old it was, but he announced that it belonged to a new species which he named Australopithecus africanus. It was the first evidence that confirmed British naturalist Charles Darwin’s assertion that apes and humans shared a long-ago common ancestor and that humanity originated from Africa.

Following on from the Taung Child, new discoveries of Australopithecus africanus were made, many at Sterkfontein, about 70km south-west of Pretoria. Sterkfontein is located within the “Cradle of Humankind”, which is a Unesco World Heritage Site.

In the century since the Taung Child was found and described, a great debate has developed about the geological ages of the Australopithecus fossils found at Sterkfontein as well as those from Taung and a third site, Makapansgat.

Much of the controversy is centred on Sterkfontein. Some researchers put the ages of fossils from a particular area (called “Member 4”) at between 3.4 million and 3.7 million years old. Others estimate that those fossils are much younger, dating back to between 2 million and 2.6 million years ago. The differences arise from the dating methods used by the opposing teams. Each has published articles rejecting the other’s methods.

Now the controversy may be a step closer to resolution. With my colleague Sue Dykes (who sadly passed away in 2019), I have used a different approach, applied directly to the fossil teeth of hominins (distant relatives of humankind), to estimate the Sterkfontein Australopithecus fossils’ ages. Our results for Member 4 suggest that the fossils range in age between about 2 million and 3.5 million years. This spans a period wider than previously thought, encompassing the ages estimated by the opposing teams.

Our method also allowed us to date the Taung Child to 2.58 million years ago.

We believe our method is accurate. But there will, no doubt, be other studies using other methods. We are dealing with a question that’s vexed scientists for decades and the quest to definitively say when these ancient members of our family tree existed in South Africa will continue.

Get the world’s most fascinating discoveries delivered straight to your inbox.

One issue that hangs on the answer is the identification of the region from which our genus (Homo) originated: was it in South Africa or east Africa, from an ancestral australopithecine species?

RELATED: 4,500-year-old tomb in France reveals secrets of how ‘European genome’ came to be

Varying methods

One reason it’s been difficult to accurately date the Sterkfontein Australopithecus is that the initial discoveries were made in the course of mining for limestone, using dynamite. That means the context of the fossils was lost.

However, at Sterkfontein and elsewhere in South Africa, fossils have been found of animal species also found in east Africa. Volcanic deposits in east Africa have traces of potassium (K) and argon (Ar) which allow for accurate K/Ar radiometric dating.

A comparison of the Taung Child skull next to Mrs. Ples, a much larger skull

A comparison of the Taung Child skull (left) next to another Australopithecus africanus skull known as Mrs. Ples, which was found in Sterkfontein, South Africa.  (Image credit: Universal History Archive via Getty Images)

Unfortunately active volcanoes did not occur in South Africa in the period of concern, between 2 million and 5 million years ago. But comparisons can be made between fossils of species from the two areas, including bovids (antelope such as wildebeest, hartebeest and kudu), suids (such as warthogs), and monkeys as well as gelada baboons.

Since the east African fossils can be well dated using the accurate K/Ar radiometric method, the ages of the same species in South Africa can be estimated. This approach is referred to as biochronology and is how one set of researchers in the debate reached their conclusion: that the Sterkfontein fossils from Member 4 are between 2 million and 2.6 million years old. Essentially the same ages have been obtained from uranium-lead and palaeomagnetic studies.

The group that sets the fossils’ ages at between 3.4 million and 3.7 million years old, meanwhile, used an approach called cosmogenic nuclide dating. They reached their conclusions by using the elements beryllium and aluminium to estimate the ages of chert (a type of sedimentary rock) in the Sterkfontein cave deposits associated with hominin fossils from Member 4.

Our approach

We also used a biochronological approach for dating. But, rather than using animal teeth, we worked directly from measurements of the Australopithecus fossils’ teeth.

We examined ratios of length and breadth of the lower first molars of east African hominins. Then, using an equation that we developed, we quantified a relationship between those ratios and geological age for our sample of Tanzanian, Kenyan and Ethiopian fossils, including Australopithecus afarensis and early Homo species such as H. habilis. The dates for these have been well established.

Under an assumption that the age of South African fossils representing the same genera could be estimated from the same relationship, we applied the equation to lower first molar teeth from Sterkfontein, notably to those attributed to Australopithecus as well as early Homo, for which tooth ratios could be determined. In this way we have been able to obtain dates for individual molars.

Our approach has been applied to molar teeth of the Taung Child, with a new result of 2.58 million years for this specimen of Australopithecus africanus.

Two teeth of Australopithecus from Makapansgat have also been dated using our method. The specimens are 3.07 million and 3.00 million years old, respectively. This is in good agreement with earlier estimates using palaeomagnetism.

We have also used our method to try to date fossils attributed to the hominin species referred to as Australopithecus sediba, found at Malapa near Sterkfontein. Our dates for two teeth representing this species (catalogued as MH1 and MH2) are respectively 2.14 million and 1.93 million years. This corresponds extremely well with the age of 1.98 million years obtained through methods using uranium, lead and palaeomagnetism.

We are particularly grateful to Jacopo Moggi-Cecchi for providing some of the measurements used in our study.

This edited article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Professor Francis Thackeray is a South African who obtained his PhD in anthropology through Yale University (1984), analysing faunal remains from Late Quaternary assemblages at Wonderwerk Cave. Prior to that he studied at the University of Cape Town where he obtained a BSc, majoring in zoology (1974); BSc (Hons) in archaeology (1975); and MSc in environmental studies (1977).

He has been particularly interested in developing a statistical (probabilistic) definition of a species.

He is a co-director of excavations at Kromdraai in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site in South Africa.

From 1990 he was head of the Department of Palaeontology and Palaeoenvironmental Studies at the Transvaal Museum (Ditsong National Museum of Natural History in Pretoria), before being appointed as director of the museum, a position he held until January 2009.

He served as director of the Institute for Human Evolution at the University of the Witwatersrand between 2009 and 2013.

Now retired, he is currently an honorary research associate with the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg.

>>> Read full article>>>
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source : Live Science – https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/famous-taung-child-fossil-from-south-africa-is-258-million-years-old-new-study-finds

Tags: famousscienceTaung
Previous Post

These are the cheapest binocular deals you can buy on the last day of Prime Day

Next Post

Astronomers want to change how we define a planet — again

Promising Technology Stocks To Follow Today – June 22nd – MarketBeat

Top Technology Stocks to Watch Today – June 22nd

June 23, 2025
Steelers Prediction Sees TJ Watt Trade to Buccaneers in Blockbuster – Yahoo Sports

Steelers Prediction Sees TJ Watt Trade to Buccaneers in Blockbuster – Yahoo Sports

June 23, 2025
Senior Thesis Spotlight: Considering facets of human psychology from a data science point of view – Princeton University

Exploring Human Psychology Through the Lens of Data Science: A Senior Thesis Spotlight

June 23, 2025
Medieval gold ring found in castle in Slovakia has rare purple sapphire imported from Sri Lanka – Live Science

Stunning Rare Purple Sapphire Unearthed in Medieval Gold Ring at Slovakian Castle

June 23, 2025
Wisconsin man’s fraud scheme funded lavish lifestyle and over 300 snowmobiles, federal charges say – WPR

Wisconsin man’s fraud scheme funded lavish lifestyle and over 300 snowmobiles, federal charges say – WPR

June 23, 2025
2025 College World Series: Scores, bracket, complete results as LSU wins eighth national title in baseball – CBS Sports

LSU Secures Epic Eighth National Baseball Championship in 2025 College World Series Thriller

June 23, 2025
Top economist who previously sounded the alarm on tariffs sees a possible scenario where Trump ‘outsmarted all of us’ – Fortune

Top Economist Raises Alarming Question: Did Trump Outsmart Everyone on Tariffs?

June 23, 2025
Universal Health Services, Inc.’s (NYSE:UHS) Intrinsic Value Is Potentially 34% Above Its Share Price – Yahoo Finance

Universal Health Services’ True Value Could Be 34% Higher Than Its Current Share Price

June 22, 2025
Millennials taking control in Prince George’s County politics – WTOP

Millennials taking control in Prince George’s County politics – WTOP

June 22, 2025
Technology Convergence Report 2025 – The World Economic Forum

Technology Convergence Report 2025 – The World Economic Forum

June 22, 2025

Categories

Archives

June 2025
MTWTFSS
 1
2345678
9101112131415
16171819202122
23242526272829
30 
« May    
Earth-News.info

The Earth News is an independent English-language daily published Website from all around the World News

Browse by Category

  • Business (20,132)
  • Ecology (697)
  • Economy (712)
  • Entertainment (21,611)
  • General (15,520)
  • Health (9,753)
  • Lifestyle (717)
  • News (22,149)
  • People (715)
  • Politics (719)
  • Science (15,931)
  • Sports (21,209)
  • Technology (15,698)
  • World (692)

Recent News

Promising Technology Stocks To Follow Today – June 22nd – MarketBeat

Top Technology Stocks to Watch Today – June 22nd

June 23, 2025
Steelers Prediction Sees TJ Watt Trade to Buccaneers in Blockbuster – Yahoo Sports

Steelers Prediction Sees TJ Watt Trade to Buccaneers in Blockbuster – Yahoo Sports

June 23, 2025
  • About
  • Advertise
  • Privacy & Policy
  • Contact

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

No Result
View All Result

© 2023 earth-news.info

Go to mobile version