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The Taung child and the biogeographic and palaeoclimatic drivers of southern African hominin diversity

Macho, Gabriele A., Neubauer, Simon, Zanolli, Clement, Vermeesch, Pieter, Kuykendall, Kevin L., Koutsodendris, Andreas, Kolb, Laurin S., Caley, Thibaut·2026·npj Palaeoecosystems
DOI 10.1038/s44513-026-00008-2
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Abstract

The discovery of the Taung child, the holotype of Australopithecus africanus , marked a turning point in palaeoanthropology and stimulated the search for hominin fossils in Africa. Despite numerous Plio-Pleistocene hominin discoveries, particularly in eastern and southern Africa, Taung’s evolutionary position and relationship to other hominins remains unclear. Here we explore whether an eco-evolutionary range dynamics framework can help explain early hominin diversity in southern Africa. Focusing on the Taung child -the only unequivocal A. africanus specimen- we first reassess the site’s chronological age and examine the fossil’s dental and brain development, and M 1 dentino-enamel junction variation. These analyses confirm that A. africanus is a poorly defined taxon. Based on new palaeoclimatic and palaeoenvironmental evidence, combined with considerations about South Africa’s geographic position and the Zambezian–southern African biogeographic boundary, we propose that complex population dynamics, including drift and hybridisation, probably underpin hominin morphological diversity in southern Africa during the Plio-Pleistocene.

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Metadata

Authors
Macho, G. A., Neubauer, S., Zanolli, C., Vermeesch, P., Kuykendall, K. L., Koutsodendris, A., Kolb, L. S., & Caley, T.
Venue
npj Palaeoecosystems
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2026-11-05
Volume
1
Issue
1
ISSN
3091-390X
DOI
10.1038/s44513-026-00008-2
Cited by
0
References
1
Language
en
Licence
Funders
European Research Council (ERC_101141770_PLIODIS)

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

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