The Centenary of Raymond Dart and the Taung Child Publication

Abstract

This year marks the centenary of UQ alumni Raymond Dart’s publication in Nature of the Taung child fossil, type specimen of Australopithecus africanus. His discovery represents the most significant shift of the 20th Century in human evolution, but at the time of publication it brought criticism and ridicule of Dart largely due to its challenge to the earlier Piltdown Man discovery. The subsequent attack by scientific colleagues quashed the publication of his more detailed monograph outlining the significance of the fossil. While Dart was criticised for his flowery prose, his paper also represents the first time a scientist gave considerable thought to the environment that may have driven evolutionary processes in early hominin evolution. Dart’s 1925 publication represents a landmark study and in addition to discussing the fossil’s significance and some key aspects of the history of the debate, I will also provide background to a project with the Queensland African Community Council that engages with Queensland African students using the Centenary of the Taung child discovery as a catalyst for an introduction to university. 

About the presenters

Professor Michael Westaway

Prof. Michael C Westaway teaches in the archaeology program at the University of Queensland and is both an archaeologist and biological anthropologist with a strong interest in the origins of the First Australians and more broadly in the archaeology of Aboriginal Australia and Papua New Guinea. He is easily excited when it comes to collaborative interdisciplinary field work that explores the intersection between archaeology and biology but currently (probably) has too many projects and these include research in Channel Country, Cape York, the highlands of Papua New Guinea and the mid north coast of New South Wales.