The Skull, an episode of Radiolab, tells the story of Taung Child. The hosts Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad interview two very knowledgeable guests to find out about the discovery of Taung Child, its similarities and differences to modern humans, the way it influenced our understanding of human ancestors, and the theories behind the cause of its death.
Taung Child is the skull fossil that was discovered in 1920s in Taung, an area on the southern edge of Kalahari dessert in South Africa (Radiolab). Back in the 1920s, this patch of land was a very popular destination for European miners. On one occasion, while blowing up rocks, the miners found themselves in front of a cave they accidentally opened up with the explosives. Inside this ancient cave they found dozens of fossilized bones that were eventually sent to Raymond Dart, a comparative neuroanatomist, who examined them and among numerous animal skulls found one that belonged to Taung Child.
The Taung Child possessed features that were associated both with humans and chimpanzees. It was similar to humans in that its face was flat; but it had smaller brain, the size of which could be found in a chimpanzee. One peculiar feature that the Taung Child possessed pertained to its foramen magnum, which is an opening in the base of the skull where the spine goes in (Radiolab). The creatures who walk on four legs have that opening placed on the back of their skulls to enable them to look forward (Radiolab). For Taung Child, however, the opening was on the bottom of its skull. This implied that Taung Child walked upright.
Upon finding this amazing creature, Dart published a paper thinking that it would change the way people looked at the origins of human ancestors. Unfortunately, his theory was rejected by the scientific community of Europe because the prevalent belief during the first half of the 20th century was that we couldn't have possibly evolved in Africa, as the continent was considered to be „backward“. People of that time liked to think that humans originated in Europe or Asia. Scientists had even already found a skull that was thought to belong to the „missing link“. This fossil, called the Piltdown Man, was found in England. Unlike the Taung Child, it had quite a large brain similar to the ones possessed by modern humans. Dart's attempts to persuade the scientific community that Taung Child was in fact our ancestor were all but futile. It was not until other fossils similar to Taung Child started to show up throughout Africa that forensic experts decided to reexamine the Piltdown Man. They soon found that it was made artificially, by combining an orangutan jaw bone with modern human skull pieces; the Piltdown Man was a fraud (Radiolab). It turned out that Taung Child was, after all, the oldest human-related fossil ever found.
Dart hypothesized that Taung Child was killed by one of its own. What contributed to his thinking this was the fact that he lived between the two world wars. Dart was actually a medic in the World War I, from which he came out disillusioned and convinced that people were inherently evil and violent creatures. However, the fact that the Taung Child was found in a cave that also held bones of other animals disproved this hypothesis (Radiolab). The next theory was that the Taung Child was killed by a large mammalian predator – a big cat. However, this theory also proved to be incorrect. According to the most recent one, proposed by anthropologist Lee Berger, the Taung Child was actually killed by an eagle. Berger came up with this idea while watching a group of monkeys get attacked by two of these vicious birds. He followed one to its nest and under it he found a pile of bones with specific, recognizable talon marks on them. Berger found those same marks on the Taung Child and the bones of other animals that came with it (Radiolab). Despite being a reasonable one, Berg's theory was not accepted for years. He finally managed to make a convincing enough argument when he learned that eagles scratch out the eye sockets of their mammalian prey in order to get to the brain (Radiolab). He found the exact scratch marks that they make on interior sockets of the Taung Child. Finally, the mystery of its death was solved.
Works Cited
Berger, Lee, and Chris Stringer. "The Skull." Interview by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. Audio blog post. Radiolab. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, 15 May 2014. Web. 10 Feb. 2016.
