australopithecus africanus

Australopithecus Africanus

By: Amanda Gross

March 28,2009

Slide 1

• Australopithecus Africanus means Southern ape in Africa.

• Australopithecus Africanus were ape like creatures who lived between 2-3 million years ago in Pliocene.

• It is also said that Australopithecus Africanus are an ancestor of modern humans.

Slide 2• A man named Raymound Dart is resoponisble for finding and naming Australopithecus Africanus. • Dart was in Taung, a small town in North West province of Africa. The name means “Place of the

lion” It was named after a chief named Tau whose tribe spoke the language of Tswana. In Tswana Tau means lion.

• Dart found a skull and it seemed like an ape, but with human traits. • Such traits as eye orbits, teeth and a hole at the base of the skull over the spianl column which

indicated human like posture. Also it had a human like cranium therefore it could have had a larger brian and more facial features.

Slide 3• Dart claimed that the skull he found had been an intermediate species between apes and humans,

however this claim was rejected by the scientific community. • Sir Arthur Keith said that the skull belonged to a young ape maybe an infant gorilla. • The skull became to be known as The Taunga Child. • About twenty years later people began to believe Dart.

Slide 4• Male Species weighed up to 100 pounds and females weighed up to 50 pounds and females height was

about 3’6 • A. Africanus was often compared to A. Afarensis. • The discovery was made that A. Africanus was more evolved then A. Afarensis. • Features included a more globular cranium and a slightly higher ratio of brian size to body size. Teeth and

face appeared less primitve. • Researchers considered the evolution of early humans to pass from A. Afarensis to A. Africanus and lead

to early Homo. • Other researchers believed that the facial features link A. Africanus to robust early human species.

Slide 5

• Taung 1 Makapansgat STA 5 STS 71

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Slide 6• In 1947 Robert Broom and John T. Robinson found a skull belonging to a middle aged female, who they

named Mrs. Ples. • Raymond Dart noted the lack of facial projection when the skull was compaired to apes. • It was a trait in common with more advanced hominines. • However today the skull is now thought to belong to a man not a woman.

Slide 7• Because of other primitve features on A. Africanus, reseachers believed in the hominin instead of being a

direct ancestor of modern hominines. • It is said that A. Africanus is Paranthropus robustus. • Both craniums seem very alike despite the more heavily built features of P. robustus which has adaptations

for heavy chewing like a gorilla. • However A. Africanus had crainums which closely resembled chimps. • Their brians measured to about 400cc to 500cc they probaly had ape like intelligene too. • A. Africanus had pelvises that were built for slightly better bipedalism than that of A. Afarensis.

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Austrolopithecus africanus reconstruction

Slide 8• A. Africanus is still an enigma to Paleoanthropology. Researchers are still unsure about where they came

from and from what species it led to. • Some species were found in Southern Africa. However they did not match the species found in Eastern

Africa. • This could mean that the designation of the genus Paranthropus may be incorrect.

Slide 9• The front teeth of A. Africanus stick out and the back teeth don’t, the back teeth grind togather. • They had sagital crest which ment that present is on the males for the attachment of large musles. • The skull was found beautiflly preserved and it was probaly belonged to a juvenile, maybe a three or four

year old.

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Slide 10

• Sites • WWW.Wikipedia.org • WWW.Anthropology.com • WWW.Geocities.com • WWW.Archaeologyinfo.com • WWW.Mnsu.edu