Science: Old Heads

In November 1924 a blast was fired in a limestone quarry near Taungs in Bechuanaland, South Africa. In the material that tumbled to the foot of the cliff were fossil fragments from a cave which the blast had exposed. The manager gathered the fossil-bearing chunks together, handed them to a Johannesburg geologist named Young who was stopping by on business. Dr. Young took them to Dr. Raymond Arthur Dart, professor of anatomy at the University of Johannesburg. Laboriously scraping away the rocky mineral, Professor Dart uncovered a small, fragmentary skull with the face...

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