Australopithecus africanus

Australopithecus africanus is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. The species has been recovered from Taung, Sterkfontein, Makapansgat, and Gladysvale. The first specimen, the Taung child, was described by anatomist Raymond Dart in 1924, and was the first early hominin found. However, its closer relations to humans than to other apes would not become widely accepted until the middle of the century because most had believed humans evolved outside of Africa. It is unclear how A. africanus relates to other hominins, being variously placed as ancestral to Homo and Paranthropus, to just Paranthropus, or to just P. robustus. The oldest known South African australopith specimen "Little Foot", representing the most completely preserved early hominin with 90% of the skeleton intact, has been controversially suggested to represent A. africanus, its probable junior synonym A. prometheus, or neither of the two taxa.

Australopithecus africanus

Guérin Nicolas ( messages ) · CC BY-SA 3.0 · via Wikipedia/Commons. May be a photograph of a specimen, or an artist’s reconstruction — an interpretation of a skeleton, since colour and soft tissue are almost never preserved.

On record

Recorded, not inferred
Sits inside
AustralopithecusPBDB
Diet
omnivorePBDB, for Hominidae
Life habit
ground dwellingPBDB, for Hominidae
Motility
actively mobilePBDB, for Osteichthyes
Environment
terrestrialPBDB, for Eutheria

Time the record covers

At most 11 million years on record.

Every occurrence read is dated to somewhere between 11.63 Mya and 774 ka, and nothing in the dating separates them, so that window is what the record shows rather than a span.

Miocene — about 1 of 7 occurrencesMiocenePliocene — about 5 of 7 occurrencesPliocenePleistocene — about 0 of 7 occurrencesPleistocene12–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–11 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences11–10 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences10–9.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.8–9.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.4–9.0 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences9.0–8.6 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.6–8.2 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences8.2–7.8 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.8–7.4 Mya — about 0.0 occurrences7.4–7.0 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences7.0–6.6 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.6–6.2 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences6.2–5.8 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.8–5.4 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences5.4–5.0 Mya — about 0.5 occurrences5.0–4.6 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences4.6–4.2 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences4.2–3.8 Mya — about 0.7 occurrences3.8–3.4 Mya — about 0.8 occurrences3.4–3.0 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences3.0–2.6 Mya — about 1.0 occurrences2.6–2.3 Mya — about 0.2 occurrences2.3–1.9 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.9–1.5 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.5–1.1 Mya — about 0.1 occurrences1.1–669 ka Mya — about 0.1 occurrences12.1 Mya274 ka

7 occurrences of Australopithecus africanus on record, most of them in the Pliocene. Bar height is expected occurrences, not a count: each fossil is spread across the span it is dated to, so a tall narrow bar means tight dating and a low wide one means loose.

When

7 occurrences

These are dates about fossils, not the animal: the record can only begin after it arose and end before it died out, so either end may reach further. Shares are expected occurrences: a fossil dated to a span is counted partly in each period it straddles. More on what this infers.

Found in

5 formations

Makapansgat — 24.20°S, 28.95°ELothagam 1 — 2.88°N, 36.07°ENawata and Nachukui — 2.88°N, 36.07°EUSNO — 5.35°N, 36.17°ESterkfontein — 26.02°S, 27.73°E

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The named rock units Australopithecus africanus has been recovered from, largest first. Drawn where the rock is now, not where it formed. 1 occurrence has no formation on record, which is common for older literature.

Australopithecus africanus and its relatives

Pliocene

Where Australopithecus africanus and its relatives were recorded in the Pliocene.

Found in the same rock

164 taxa

The Paleobiology Database records 7 sites for Australopithecus africanus, and this reads all of them. The number is how many of those sites it was catalogued from too. The 24 sharing the most are listed.

This is not a list of everything alive at the time. It is only what has come out of the same ground as this animal and been written down.

Entered from

7 references

Each of the 7 occurrences read was entered from one of these publications, ordered by how many each accounts for. This is not a search for papers mentioning the name. Entries link to doi.org where the Paleobiology Database holds an identifier, and to its own record where it does not. Relayed as the Paleobiology Database holds them, not checked against what they resolve to.

Media and terms

Media content3

Picture of Australopithecus africanus

Credit
Guérin Nicolas ( messages )
Licence
CC BY-SA 3.0
Commercial use
the licence allows it

Laser scan

Licence
not stated by the source
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record
Specimen
Australopithecus africanus · UW:Taung 1

3D model

Source
Sketchfab
Licence
CC Attribution
Commercial use
cannot be read from the licence given — check the record

Smithsonian Open Access was not reached for this taxon, so this list is what the others held rather than everything there is.

The description on this site

Licence
CC BY-SA 4.0

This is what the site found, which is not the same as what exists.

Keep going

What may have been alongside itAustralopithecus through timeFormations of the PlioceneThe world it lived on

Occurrence data from the Paleobiology Database, CC BY 4.0. Dart 1925