Early humans faced death from the skies

The Seattle PI ^ | Jan 13, 2006 | ALEXANDRA ZAVIS

[microgood]

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa -- An American researcher believes he has solved the mystery of how one of the most important human forerunners died nearly 2 million years ago: An eagle killed the 3 1/2-year-old ape-man known as the Taung child.

The discovery suggests small human ancestors known as hominids had to survive being hunted not only by large predators on the ground but by fearsome raptors that swooped from the sky, said Lee Berger, a senior paleoanthropologist at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand.

"These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the world they lived in and the things they feared," Berger said in documents accompanying a presentation at a conference Thursday.

"These are the stresses that formed the human mind and made us one of the most successful animals on the face of the planet."

The discovery of the partial skull of a juvenile ape-man in South Africa's North West Province in 1924 revealed a human ancestor species called Australopithecus africanus, which was proposed to be the "missing link" between apes and humans. It also gave evidence that early humans evolved in Africa, rather than Europe and Asia, as most scientists believed at the time.

The child's death has been blamed on a leopard or saber-toothed cat, known to have preyed on hominids. But 10 years ago, Berger and fellow researcher Ron Clarke theorized the hunter was a predatory bird, similar to the African crowned eagle.

Berger and Clarke argued the skulls and bones of monkeys and other animal fossils found at the Taung site, about 300 miles southwest of Johannesburg, showed evidence of damage by eagles. Other researchers agreed eagles likely were preying on small animals at the site but contended ape-men were too large, sophisticated and organized to be taken by a bird.

"The one big problem was the lack of multiple areas of damage on the Taung child itself that could be linked to a bird of prey," Berger said. "We had one little flap of bone on the top of the skull that looked like some of the damage we see made by eagles and nothing else. ... It was the ultimate 2 million-year-old cold case."

Five months ago, researchers from Ohio State University submitted what Berger called the most comprehensive study to date of eagle damage on bones. Berger was asked to review the paper for the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

The study by Scott McGraw, Catherine Cooke and Suzanne Schultz of primate remains from modern crowned eagle nests in Ivory Coast's Tai forest showed raptors routinely hunt primates much larger than themselves by swooping down and piercing their skulls with their back talons. There is even a documented case of an eagle killing a child, Berger said.

The Ohio State paper identified features that distinguished damage caused by eagles from that of other predators. They include the flaps of depressed bone on top of the skull caused by the birds' talon and keyhole-shaped cuts on the side made by their beaks, noted by Berger and Clarke in their 1995 paper.

But they also identified features previously never described: puncture marks and ragged incisions in the base of the eye sockets, made when eagles rip out the eyes of dead monkeys with their talons and beaks to get at the brains. Large predators can't reach inside the tiny sockets and instead crack open the skulls, Berger said.

The study prompted Berger to re-examine the Taung skull.

"I picked up this little face, and I almost dropped it," he said Thursday. There was a tiny hole and jagged tears at the base of the eye sockets that he and over two dozen other researchers had never noticed.

Berger checked a 1925 cast of the skull to confirm the damage was always there.

"I think ... that we have conclusively proven, beyond a reasonable doubt that that is the killer of the Taung child," Berger said.

Berger presented his research at a conference celebrating the 80th birthday of retired South African professor Phillip Tobias, who did pioneering research on the evolutionary links between primates and humans. It is to be published in the February edition of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

[microgood]

A 2 million year old cold case.

[One Proud Dad]

I think the shows on the Science and Discovery Channel that depict how dinsaurs lived are bogus. They show how these dinosaurs looked ( as far as color of skin and eyes ) and interacted with each other and even how they sounded and pass it off as fact. I did not know all that was available from a petrified bone.

[epluribus_2]

kid could have just died and treated as carrion, too. Still happens.

[George Smiley]

Are you sure that wasn't that Disney movie?

[Coyoteman]

Here is some information on this individual.

---

Fossil: Taung Child

Site: Buxton Limeworks, Taung, South Africa (1)

Discovered By: M. de Bruyn 1924 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 2.3 mya * determined by Faunal & geomorphological data (1, 4, 5)

Species Name: Australopithecus africanus (1, 3, 7, 8)

Gender: Unknown (1)

Cranial Capacity: 405 (440 as adult) cc (1, 3)

Information: First early hominid fossil found in Africa (7, 8)

Interpretation: Juvenile (3 years old based on deciduous teeth, first permanent molars) (1, 3, 4, 7)
Bipedal hominid (based on position of foramen magnum, brain endocast, small canines) (1, 3, 4, 7)
Killed possibly by bird of prey (based on fractures and puncture marks on skull) (1, 10)

See original source for notes:
http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=27

[Mike Darancette]

Early humans faced death from the skies

Isn't calling a hominid a human a bit of a stretch?

[ASA Vet]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1556652/posts

[Muleteam1]

A large eagle could still kill a 3 1/2 year old child out in the open so this is hardly news.

[Prost1]

"A large eagle could still kill a 3 1/2 year old child out in the open so this is hardly news."

Running out of good topics for a Phd diseration, maybe?

[Publius6961]

An eagle killed the 3 1/2-year-old ape-man known as the Taung child.

Another one of those scenarios generated from a toe bone found in some remote spot: this individual ate apples for breakfast and probably was covered by 8 muskrat furs while sleeping...

Large returns of conjecture from small investment of fact...

Why "eagle"? Why not a large flying raptor the name of which we may not even yet know?

[-YYZ-]

You're right, they pass it off as science when in fact it's little more than a speculative fictionalization based on scant evidence. T-rex walked or ran with its body and tail held horizontally? OK, that makes sense. But as to its color, how it sounded or smelled, or exactly what type of social relations it had, well they're extrapolating an awful lot from very little.

[rabidralph]

[ASA Vet]

The researcher stated "a large predatory bird."
The Eagle reference was to modern day Eagles producing the same type damage as observed on the skull.
No claim that it was specifically an Eagle was made.

[ASA Vet]

Perfect example.

[SirJohnBarleycorn]

[af_vet_rr]

I think the shows on the Science and Discovery Channel that depict how dinsaurs lived are bogus. They show how these dinosaurs looked ( as far as color of skin and eyes ) and interacted with each other and even how they sounded and pass it off as fact. I did not know all that was available from a petrified bone.

I think sometimes they try to apply modern behaviors, or rather behaviors that have been observed in modern times, to dinosaurs (such as pack animals hunting). It would be fairly safe to think that such behaviors were possible back then, and when you look at how some dinosaurs were built, it's easy to see where they could fit into that.

On the other hand, they do have sites where large groups of dinosaurs suddenly died together, and they can see certain traits present.

To flip around and play devil's advocate, they make the world millions of years ago to be this vicious cycle of T-Rex (or another predator/scavenger) constantly killing thisorthatasaurs, and I wonder how much of that is true - it's like if I were to tell you that hippos are far more dangerous than crocodiles or lions, or that elephants killing people and lions is far more common than you think, you might be surprised.

[wideminded]

I once read that Lloyds of London hsd insured a man against having an eagle drop a tortoise on his head. This is how the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus is supposed to have died. I thought that this was just a ridiculous impossible event. But recently I heard that some eagles do in fact carry tortoises up into the air and drop them on rocks to break their shells.

[One Proud Dad]

"it's like if I were to tell you that hippos are far more dangerous than crocodiles or lions, or that elephants killing people and lions is far more common than you think, you might be surprised."

Not surprised, I agree. I think it is funny how they condemn Christians/Jews for our faith in creation yet their view is little more than faith itself. Nobody knows exactly what anything was like before recorded history, say prior to about 10,000 BC. It is all supposition.