Smithsonian Evolution Storytelling

Taung Child S AfricaNew high-resolution CT scans of the Taung Child skull (pictured left) by an international research team led by Ralph L. Holloway of Columbia University in New York casts renewed questions into the inane Smithsonian evolution storytelling practices of the institute.

Discovered in 1924 in South Africa, models of the skull have long since been duplicated for natural history museums as evidence for human evolution worldwide, including the Smithsonian. Found near Taung, South Africa, the lynchpin skull was tagged with the common name of Taung Child because of the fossil’s estimated age of 3 years, then later named Australopithecus africanus meaning the “southern ape from Africa.” Hollow’s new high-resolution CT scan images, however, undermine the long-held pre-Homo fossil status of the skull.

At the center of renewed contention is the skull’s absence of a front suture and fontanelle. While children of the age of 3 have a recognizable front suture, known as a metopic suture, Holloway could not detect any evidence of a metopic suture in the Taung skull.

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