Taung Child

Taung Child

Catalog no.	Taung 1
Common name	Taung Child
Species	Australopithecus africanus
Age	~2.8 mya; 3.3 years when deceased
Place discovered	Taung, South Africa
Date discovered	1924
Discovered by	Raymond Dart

The Taung Child (or Taung Baby) is the fossilised skull of a young Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in 1924 by quarrymen working for the Northern Lime Company in Taung, South Africa. Raymond Dart described it as a new species in the journal Nature in 1925.

The Taung skull is in repository at the University of Witwatersrand.^[1] Dean Falk, a specialist in brain evolution, has called it "the most important anthropological fossil of the twentieth century."^[2]