Taung and beyond: The mining history, geology and taphonomy of Australopithecus in South Africa

Abstract

South Africa is host to the single richest early hominin fossil record worldwide, including many examples of the endemic species Australopithecus africanus fossils. This species was first described by Raymond Dart in 1925 from the deposits near the town of Taung. Later, many more fossils, of different species and genera, were found in the caves of the Sterkfontein and Makapan Valleys. To understand this rich and diverse fossil record, we must understand how the landscape formed (cave formation processes) and changed (mining), when this happened (geochronology), and how the fossils were accumulated and modified (taphonomy). Here we provide a review of these themes to mark the centenary of the Taung Child discovery. We mark this moment in our field by critically reflecting on the role of extractive practices, especially centred around past mining of the Caves and the exclusion of many members of research teams. The South African Fossil Hominid sites provide a unique opportunity to expand our understanding of the intersection between human evolution and changing environmental conditions, as the karstic landscape and remnant cave systems preserve both fossils and sedimentary archives of past environmental change. We offer a perspective on future research areas: more standardised excavation practices and techniques to raise the quality of data collected from the caves and new techniques to date and extract palaeoclimate data from cave deposits themselves, to provide novel insights into the world of the early australopiths.