Question

1. How was Raymond Dart able to determine that the Taung Child was a hominin?
2. Why were others reluctant to accept Dart’s theory that hominins first emerged in Africa?
3. What is Lee Berger’s theory of the cause of death for the Taung Child? What evidence does he cite to support his theory?

Answer 1

Taung child, Mr. Raymond Dart recognizes the humanlike features of the Taung Skull near Kalahari desert in South Africa in 1924, as a primitive hominin (member of the human lineage)

Specifications what is to be found:-This is a natural cast of the inside of the skull and the face is like of three- or four-year-old child. Their ape-sized brain was only seems to 1/3rd size of that of modern humans, bialut the skull has humanlike teeth. And there is hole at the base of the skull which reveals the posture of an upright human, not a knuckle-walking ape.

In the initial stage, most of the researcher reluctant /rejects to accept due to its small brain as a human ancestor,but after research and discoveries it has been proven that human evolution began with adoption of two leg walking while brain were still essentially apelike.

Lee Bergerand Clarke theory:-

This theory discovered in 2006 and states that Taung child was killed by an eagle or hawks, falcone since the similarity of damage to the skull and eye sockets of the Taung Child .

Evidence:- Black eagle snatched a vervet monkey from a troop playing on the opposite ridge.They were shocked to see and never dreamt an Eagle could carry off something so big in weight and height but when they seen the monkey hanging in those talons and after that Berger and clark went back to Johansberg and spent many months to find the eagle history ,means their diet and looking of animal parts that they were found around Eagle nest and comparing and analysing them with the Tung child damage.After tehy found bones from modern eagle nests which show depression fractures in the top and sides of the skulls and V-shaped cuts made by the beak. The base of the skull has usually been torn away by the bird as it tries to get at the meat of the brain. And therefore it killed by Eagles or preditary bird.