The Taung Child (Australopithecus africanus), the Plio-Pleistocene boundary and a supernova hypothesis

2025/05/29 by Francis Thackeray · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology

paper · pdf · doi:10.17159/sajs.2025/21846

openalex publication_date 2025/05/29 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/05/06

Abstract

The Taung Child is a fossilised hominin skull and jaw from the North West Province in South Africa.One hundred years ago it was described by Raymond Dart as the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus, a distant human relative.On the basis of biochronology, it has recently been estimated to be 2.58 million years old.This date coincides with the Plio-Pleistocene boundary.In terms of a supernova hypothesis, it is proposed that global cooling between about 3 and 2.6 million years ago is related to factors associated with a supernova less than 100 parsecs from the solar system.

Discussions

• The Taung Child is a Plio-Pleistocene skull of Australopithecus africanus, 2.58 million years old, representing a species which may have been indirectly affected by climatic change associated with a s [bsky, 0 points, 0 comments]

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