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.

South African australopithecine remains probably accumulated in caves due to predation by large carnivores (namely big cats), and the Taung child appears to have been killed by a bird of prey.

In 1924, Australian anatomist Professor Raymond Dart, since 1923 working in South-Africa, was informed by one of his students, Josephine Salmons, that monkey fossils (of Papio izodi) had been discovered by shotfirer M.G.

In them, he noticed a natural brain endocast and a face of a, now known to be 2.8 million year old, juvenile skull, the Taung child, that he immediately recognised as a transitional fossil between apes and humans.

In 1933, South African palaeoanthropologist Robert Broom suggested moving A. africanus into Hominidae, which at the time contained only humans and their ancestors.

Nonetheless, Dart and Broom continued to argue that Australopithecus was far removed from chimpanzees, showing several physical and claiming some behavioural similarities with humans.

[2]: 285–288  To this extent, Dart made note of the amalgamations of large mammal bone fragments in australopithecine-bearing caves which are now attributed to hyena activity.

[3] However, Dart proposed that the bones were instead evidence of what he named the "osteodontokeratic culture" produced by australopithecine hunters, who manufactured weapons using the long bones, teeth, and horns of large hoofed prey:[4] On this thesis man's predecessors differed from living apes in being confirmed killers: carnivorous creatures, that seized living quarries by violence, battered them to death, tore apart their broken bodies, dismembered them limb from limb, slaking their ravenous thirst with the hot blood of victims and greedily devouring livid writhing flesh.Broom was one of the few scientists defending the close human affinities of Australopithecus africanus.

[10] However, in 1953, South African palaeontologist John Talbot Robinson believed that splitting species and genera on such fine hairs was unjustified, and that australopithecine remains from East Africa recovered over the previous couple of decades were indistinguishable from "Plesianthropus"/A.

[13] In 2018, palaeoanthropologists Lee Rogers Berger and John D. Hawks considered "A. prometheus" a nomen nudum ("naked name"), and has not been properly described with diagnostic characteristics which separate it from A.

They considered its antiquity further evidence of species distinction, drawing parallels with A. anamensis and A. afarensis from Middle Pliocene East Africa.

[17] Many hominin specimens traditionally assigned to A. africanus have been recovered from Sterkfontein Member 4 (including Mrs. Ples and 2 partial skeletons), previously dated to 2.8 to 2.15 million years ago.

But in 2022 a team including Clarke and Kuman used cosmogenic nuclide techniques to date Member 4 at 3.4 million years, which it says discredits the assumption that A. africanus descended from A.

Such a mix may reflect habitual locomotion both in the trees and walking while upright because inner ear anatomy affects the vestibular system (sense of balance).

[27] A. africanus had a prognathic jaw (it jutted out), a somewhat dished face (the cheek were inflated, causing the nose to be at the bottom of a dip), and a defined brow ridge.

[13] A. africanus has a wide range of variation for skull features, which is typically attributed to moderate to high levels of sexual dimorphism in that males were more robust than females.

The StW 573 atlas shows similar mechanical advantages for the muscles which move the shoulder girdle as chimps and gorillas, which may indicate less lordosis (normal curvature of the spine) in A. africanus neck vertebrae.

Like in the restored pelvis of the Lucy specimen (A. afarensis), the sacrum was relatively flat and orientated more towards the back than in humans, and the pelvic cavity had an overall platypelloid shape.

[38] However, the right clavicle of StW 573 has a distinctly S-shaped (sigmoid) curve like humans, which indicates a humanlike moment arm for stabilising the shoulder girdle against the humerus.

[41] However, the modern Congo Twa hunter–gatherers can achieve a chimp-like angle with the ankle while climbing trees due to the longer fibres in the gastrocnemius (calf) muscle instead of specific skeletal adaptations.

Based on carbon isotope analyses, A. africanus had a highly variable diet which included a notable amount of C4 savanna plants such as grasses, seeds, rhizomes, underground storage organs, or perhaps grass-eating invertebrates (such as locusts or termites), grazing mammals, or insectivores or carnivores.

[44][45] A. africanus facial anatomy seems to suggest adaptations for producing high stress on the premolars, useful for eating small, hard objects such as seeds and nuts that need to be cracked open by the teeth, or for processing a large quantity of food at one time.

Cyclical barium, lithium, and strontium bands occur in modern primates—for example, wild orangutans up to 9 years of age—which is caused by seasonal famine when a child has to rely on nursing to sustain themselves and less desirable fallback foods.

Males did not seem to have ventured very far from the valley, which could either indicate small home ranges, or that they preferred dolomitic landscapes due to perhaps cave abundance or factors related to vegetation growth.

[52] The juvenile specimen STS 24a was diagnosed with an extreme case of periodontal disease on the right side of the mouth, which caused pathological bone growth around the affected site, and movement of the first two right molars during cyclical periods of bacterial infection and resultant inflammation.

The periodontal disease would have severely hindered chewing, particularly in the last year of life, and the individual potentially may have relied on group members to survive for as long as it did.

The only living member of this tree genus in South Africa is Dichapetalum cymosum, which grows in dense, humid gallery forests.

[57] In 1983, studying P. robustus remains, South African palaeontologist Charles Kimberlin Brain hypothesised that australopithecine bones accumulated in caves due to large carnivore activity, dragging in carcasses.

[59] Scratches, gouges, and puncture marks on the Taung child similar to those inflicted by modern crowned eagles indicate this individual was killed by a bird of prey.

It is possible that South Africa was a refuge for Australopithecus until the beginning of major climatic variability and volatility, and, perhaps, competition with Homo and Paranthropus.