Australopithecus africanus

In the 1950s, Australian-born South African paleoanthropologist Raymond Dart, who famously discovered our ancestor Australopithecus africanus, suggested that our ancestors were using bones as weapons to not only kill animals but also their own kind.

He named the prehuman species Australopithecus africanus — the southern ape of Africa.

For years scientists believed the Australopithecus africanus species, whose fossils were discovered in the Sterkfontein caves near Johannesburg, had been less than 2.6 million years old.

In chimpanzees and various other human ancestors such as Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, the inner ear is not designed to resolve the frequency band of language particularly well.

Dart therefore described the Taung Child as a ‘man-ape’ rather than an ‘ape-man’, like Java Man, and named the species Australopithecus africanus, which means southern ape from Africa.