The Taung specimen was the first early human fossil found in Africa. Found in 1924 by a quarryman working for the Northern Lime Company in South Africa the find was given tothe University of Witwatersrand's anatomist Raymond Dart who recognized its importance. The fossil consisted of a face and mandible with dentition, several pieces of cranial bone, and most importantly, a natural endocast (an impression of the brain's outer surface as the contents of the skull were replaced by minerals during the process of fossilization). The skull was that of a child whose first molars had just started to erupt.

Dart recognized distinctly human features in the fossil and proposed the classification of a new genus and species Australopithecus africanus -- "Man/Ape of southern Africa". These features included a flatter, less projecting face than in apes, a rounded head with a lack of browridges, and a lightly built mandible that did not have a diastema (a space between the lower canine teeth and the first premolars), which is seen in apes. The natural endocast gave a cranial capacity of 405cc with a projected adult measurement of 440cc, somewhat larger than in modern apes.

Dart's publication on the "Taung Child," as it was being called, met with immediate criticism from an established community for the most part committed to Piltdown Man. Much of the criticism centered on the fact that this was the fossil of a child. Many of the features listed above are known in modern apes prior to maturity, and the fact that the first molars of the Taung Child had only just started to erupt indicated that the individual was a juvenile. Sir Arthur Keith, anatomist and prominent supporter of Piltdown, argued that this was an immature chimpanzee.

However, there was one additional feature to the Taung Child that was not easily explained away as a characteristic of an immature ape. The position of the foramen magnum, or the hole through which the spinal chord connects with the brain, was positioned well to the front of the skull, an adaptation of a bipedal creature whose head would rest atop the neck in a relatively balanced position. Conversely, a quadrupedal ape whose head would rest in front of the neck, would need a foramen magnum positioned to the rear of the head to keep its eyes facing forward, and not down, as it moved. If this truly was a chimpanzee, and not an early human, why the forward positioning of the foramen magnum?