Australopithecus Africanus

Australopithecus africanus

Australopithecus africanus (meaning southern ape of Africa) lived in Southern Africa about 3.3 to 2.1 million years ago. The first Au. africanus fossil, the Taung child, discovered by Prof. Raymond Dart was initially dismissed because Dart was an Australian, and not a part of the scientific establishment, and because he found the fossil in Africa, and not Europe or Asia, where the establishment looked to for man’s origins. It was more than 20 years later when the scientific community accepted Australopithecus as a member of the human family tree.