Australopithecus

Australopithecus was an ancestor of humans.

The latest discovery made between the year of 2000 and 2005 bridges two periods in human evolution: that of our oldest prehistoric ancestor, the 4 to 7 million-year-old Ardipithecus, and the more modern, 3.5 million-year-old Australopithecus.

In its turn the institute received from the British Museum of Natural History plaster casts of the skulls of Australopithecuses, a species of higher ape which lived over a million years ago.

In his final period, Teilhard felt he saw all his own Weltanschauung confirmed by Dr. Broom’s work with the fossils of Australopitheci in South Africa; […]

1. Australopithecus africanus. (a) Taungs: It was found in 1924 in a cave at Taungs in Bechuanaland, South Africa. It is the oldest of all Australopitheci, about 600,000 years old.

On the other, in the fossil-bearing pockets exposed in the Transvaal, in the region of Johannesburg (Taungs, Sterkfontein) by quarries opened in the limestone (exactly as at Choukoutien), a whole series of skulls and jaws, and some limb bones have, since 1925, gradually been disclosing the extremely curious group of Australopitheci.

In the middle of the nineteenth century there were very few paleontological data shedding light on the origin of man. During the past century many major discoveries were made in that area, among which the discovery of remains of Australopithecuses in South and East Africa was particularly important, as was the discovery of remains of Pithecanthropes and of closely related creatures (Homo erectus) in Java, China, and Africa.

The Australopitheci, who lived between the years - 6 million and - 1 million, perhaps mingled with the first representatives of the human race, the Homo habilis… their presence is certified in Africa as early as the year - 2.4 million, but could date back to the year - 3 million.

This stone, which was discovered, several kilometres from any possible geological source, in a cave occupied by Australopitheci in South Africa, must have been found and transported about three million years ago on account of its redness, its accidental likeness to a face and, above all, because of its ‘gaze’.

In this sphere too, Homo habilis was the first species of Homo to exhibit the brain capacity crucial to sustain language: 700 ccs against the 450 ccs of the Australopitheci who preceded him, and significantly greater development in the parietal and frontal areas, which are respectively responsible for the control over language and over the hands.