Taung Child

Marion Bamford is Professor of Palaeobotany and the Director of the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Joni Brenner is an artist and lecturer in Interdisciplinary Arts and Culture Studies at the Wits School of Arts. Amanda Esterhuysen is Associate Professor in Archeaelogy at the Univeristy of Cape Town. Shaw Badenhorst is a zooarchaeologist at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Craig Dryden Elstob is the grandson of Josephine Edna Salmons, whose observation led to the discovery of the Taung Child. He is the family historian and republished his great-grandfather Alfred de Jager Jackson's memoir, Manna in the Desert: A Revelation of the Great Karroo (2006). Dean Falk is an evolutionary anthropologist at Florida State University, with a special focus on paleoneurology. Tammy Hodgskiss Reynard is an archaeologist and Head of the Origins Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Isabel Hofmeyr is a professor emeritus at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg who has pioneered research on global, oceanic and transnational forms of literary and cultural history. Her books include Gandhi's Printing Press: Experiments in Slow Reading (2013) and Dockside Reading: Hydrocolonialism and the Custom House (2022). Lungile Keswa is Artistic Director of the Kano Creative Arts Agency, a non-profit organization in Taung. Jeffrey McKee is a biological anthropologist based at Ohio State University. Mirriam Tawane is the Executive of Core Business at the National Heritage Council of South Africa. She is the first Black South African to earn a PhD in Palaeoanthropology from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Francis Thackeray is an honorary research associate at the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Liz Whitter is a fine art photographer. She collaborated with artist Joni Brenner on a series of photographic artworks produced for Brenner's exhibition, Impact, at the Wits Origins Centre Bernhard Zipfel is Curator of Collections at the Evolutionary Studies Institute, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

List of figures and tables Acknowledgments Preface - Tammy Hodgskiss Reynard and Amanda Esterhuysen Introduction - Marion Bamford, Joni Brenner and Amanda Esterhuysen Chapter 1 The Taung Child: A landmark discovery in human evolution - Bernhard Zipfel and Marion Bamford Chapter 2 Piltdown Man (Eoanthropus) and the Taung Child (Australopithecus africanus): A historical summary and scenario - Francis Thackeray Chapter 3 The Curious Role Serendipity Played in Taung's Saga - Dean Falk Chapter 4 Shifting Terrains: Social changes in the field - Marion Bamford and Joni Brenner, with contributions from Craig Elstob and Mirriam Tawane Chapter 5 The Taung Fossil Sites: History of our prehistory - Jeffrey K McKee Insert James Kitching in the field: an ongoing relationship with Taung - Shaw Badenhorst Chapter 6 The Palaeoenvironment and Fauna of Taung - Shaw Badenhorst and Marion Bamford Chapter 7 Protean Fossil, Intransigent Man: The social impact of the Taung Child - Amanda Esterhuysen Chapter 8 Fossicking Between Art and Science: Comments on Joni Brenner's 'Impact' - Isabel Hofmeyr Chapter 9 Impact: An exhibition by Joni Brenner, Wits Origins Centre Museum, 26 October 2024 - 16 August 2025 - Joni Brenner and Liz Whitter Chapter 10 Creating Platforms - Joni Brenner and Lungile Keswa Chapter 11 Inside the Phillip V Tobias Primate and Hominid Fossil Laboratory - Amanda Esterhuysen, Joni Brenner, Bernhard Zipfel and Liz Whitter Chapter 12 The impact of the Taung hominin on Palaeoanthropology - Marion Bamford and Bernhard Zipfel Afterword Raymond Dart's article in Nature Glossary Index