3-million-year-old Taung Child once again shakes up our human family tree

science & techPhys.orgc. 3 million years ago · Taung, South Africa

3-million-year-old Taung Child once again shakes up our human family tree

from Phys.org

A century after the Taung Child permanently altered our view of human origins, a new study published in npj Palaeoecosystems dates the famous fossil to between 2.96 and 3.03 million years old. Led by professor Gabriele Macho of the Archaeology, Environmental Changes and Geo-Chemistry (AMGC) research group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), the international research highlights that the human family tree in southern Africa was far more complex than previously assumed.

explained

The Taung Child (or Taung Baby) is the fossilised skull of a young Australopithecus africanus. It was discovered in Taung, South Africa in 1924 and described as a new species and genus by Raymond Dart in 1925. The skull was one of the first early hominin fossils to be found in Africa, and the first evidence that humanity originated from the continent.

The Taung skull is in repository at the University of the Witwatersrand. Dean Falk, a specialist in brain evolution, has called it "the most important anthropological fossil of the twentieth century." It revealed the existence of a group of hominins that were bipedal but had brains no larger than those of chimpanzees.

From Wikipedia: Taung Child (CC BY-SA 4.0) ↗

how it works

Fossils in cave deposits are hard to date directly, so researchers analyse the surrounding rock and associated animal remains, comparing them to well-dated records, to bracket an age.

so what

Dating fixes where a fossil sits in the story of our ancestry, and the Taung Child is among the most famous. A precise age helps decide which species overlapped, and whether southern Africa was a crossroads or a dead end for human evolution.

fun fact

The child is thought to have been killed by an eagle, since the skull has damage like that on monkey skulls from modern eagle nests.

Hampi was once one of the world's largest cities, until its Vijayanagara capital was destroyed in 1565

the gist

Hampi is a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Karnataka, India, with more than 1,600 surviving remains spread over 4,100 hectares. It was the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire from 1336 to 1565. Travellers from Persia and Portugal described it as a prosperous, wealthy and grand city with temples, markets and farms along the Tungabhadra River. By 1500 it was estimated to be the world's second-largest city after Beijing, and probably India's richest at the time. In 1565 a coalition of Muslim sultanates defeated the Vijayanagara Empire, its capital was conquered and destroyed, and the city was left in ruins. Hampi remains a religious centre, with the active Virupaksha Temple at its heart.

how it works

The city was built around a fortified core with temples, markets and water structures along the river, supplied by an extensive network of roads and waterworks. When the empire fell, the city was not rebuilt, so its stone monuments were left standing.

so what

Hampi shows how quickly a great city can vanish after a military defeat, and how a ruined capital can remain sacred. Its ruins give historians a view of medieval South Asia that few other sites can match.

fun fact

The name Hampi comes from Pampa, an old name for the Tungabhadra River.

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia · text CC BY-SA 4.0

Image: Wikimedia Commons

source: Wikipedia ↗

2 min

politicsshortCNA2:01

False allegations about Singapore’s hand in Indonesia’s markets and a made-up meeting

from CNA

CNA Verify has found close to 400 posts pushing falsehoods tying Singapore to Indonesia’s stock market rout and to a secret meeting that never took place. Together, they drew nearly 12 million views, and some were circulated by accounts that appeared to be working in concert, across multiple social media platforms.

Here’s how the disinformation campaign targeting Singapore was uncovered.

on YouTube: CNA ↗