Author: Rebecca Ackermann, Professor, Department of Archaeology and Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape Town

The fossil skull that rocked the world – 100 years later scientists are grappling with the Taung find’s complex colonial legacy

Rebecca Ackermann, Professor, Department of Archaeology and Human Evolution Research Institute, University of Cape TownLeave a Comment on The fossil skull that rocked the world – 100 years later scientists are grappling with the Taung find’s complex colonial legacy

Here’s how the story of the Taung Child is usually told: In 1924 an Australian anthropologist and anatomist, Raymond Dart, acquired a block of calcified sediment from a limestone quarry in South Africa. He painstakingly removed a fossil skull from this material. A year later, on 7 February 1925, he published his description of what […]

Continue Reading