When was the Taung Child discovered?

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Side view illustration of Australopithecus afarensis, an early human ancestor, shown walking upright with a hairy body and ape-like facial features. A scale beside the figure marks 12 inches and 40 centimeters. — Australopithecus Artist's rendering of *Australopithecus afarensis*, which lived from 3.8 to 2.9 million years ago.

The Taung child, which is the first discovered fossil of Australopithecus africanus, was discovered in 1924. It was exhumed by miners in South Africa and subsequently identified as a primitive hominin by the paleoanthropologist Raymond Dart.1