Two Million-Year Old Mystery Solved: Taung Child Killed by Bird

News24
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Johannesburg (South (Africa):
An American researcher said on Thursday his investigation into the death nearly two million years ago of an ape-man shows human ancestors were hunted by birds.
Lee Berger, a paleo-anthropologist at Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand, said: "These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the world in which they lived and the things they feared."
He was presenting his conclusions about a mystery that has been debated since the remains of the possible human ancestor known as the Taung child were discovered in 1924. Researchers had speculated the Taung child was killed by a leopard or saber-toothed feline. But, 10 years ago, Berger and fellow researcher Ron Clarke submitted the theory the hunter was a large predatory bird.
This was based on the fact most of the other fossils found at the same site were small monkeys that showed signs of having been killed by a predatory bird.
Jan 12, 2006