Raymond Arthur Dart (February 4, 1893 – November 22, 1988) was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist. The son of a farmer and tradesman, he was married twice and had two children. He is best known for his discovery in 1924 of a fossil (first ever found) of Australopithecus africanus (extinct hominid closely related to humans) at Taung in Northwestern South Africa.
He was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and studied at Ipswich Grammar ...
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Raymond Arthur Dart (February 4, 1893 – November 22, 1988) was an Australian anatomist and anthropologist. The son of a farmer and tradesman, he was married twice and had two children. He is best known for his discovery in 1924 of a fossil (first ever found) of Australopithecus africanus (extinct hominid closely related to humans) at Taung in Northwestern South Africa.
He was born in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and studied at Ipswich Grammar School, the University of Queensland, University of Sydney and University College, London, before taking a position as head of the newly established department of anatomy at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1922.
In 1924, a limestone quarry owner at Taung shipped Dart a box of fossiliferous rock. Digging around in it, Dart found an endocranial cast, and then its matching fossil skullpiece. Dart examined this ”Taung Child” fossil, as it came to be known, and pronounced it to be a new species, Australopithecus...
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