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Mrs. Ples is the popular nickname for the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus ever found in South Africa.Many Australopithecus fossils have been found near Sterkfontein, about 40 kilometres (25 mi) northwest of Johannesburg, in a region of Gauteng (part of the old Transvaal) now designated as the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site.
Australopithecus africanus is an extinct species of australopithecine which lived between about 3.3 and 2.1 million years ago in the Late Pliocene to Early Pleistocene of South Africa. [1] The species has been recovered from Taung , Sterkfontein , Makapansgat , and Gladysvale .
Dart's claim that Australopithecus africanus, the species name that he had given to the Taung Child, was a transitional form between apes and humans was almost universally rejected. Robert Broom, a Scottish doctor who worked in South Africa, was one of the few scientists to believe Dart. [24]
The Sterkfontein Caves were the site of the discovery of a 2.3-million-year-old fossil Australopithecus africanus (nicknamed "Mrs. Ples"), found in 1947 by Robert Broom and John T. Robinson. The find helped corroborate the 1924 discovery by Raymond Dart of the juvenile Australopithecus africanus skull known as the " Taung Child " at Taung in ...
Debate exists as to whether some Australopithecus species should be reclassified into new genera, or if Paranthropus and Kenyanthropus are synonymous with Australopithecus, in part because of the taxonomic inconsistency. [7] [8] Furthermore, because e.g. A. africanus is more closely related to humans, or their ancestors at the time, than e.g.
This site has yielded many thousands of fossil bones, amongst which were found remains of the gracile australopithecine Australopithecus africanus. The A. africanus fossils are suggested to date to between 2.85 and 2.58 million years ago based on palaeomagnetism by Andy Herries (La Trobe University, Australia). [3]
While none of the groups normally directly assigned to this group survived, the australopithecines do not appear to be literally extinct (in the sense of having no living descendants) as the genera Kenyanthropus, Paranthropus, and Homo probably emerged as sisters of a late Australopithecus species such as A. africanus and/or A. sediba.
In 1924, a skull (later named the Taung Child) was discovered by a quarry-worker in the nearby Buxton-limestone quarry. It was described by Raymond Dart in 1925 as the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus after he received a shipment of mostly fossil baboons, but also containing the skull and face of the child.