THE CITIZEN ON MARS

It has been concluded lately that pre-historic humans were once hapless preys to huge birds (otherwise known as raptors). Paleo-anthropologist Lee Berger of the Wits University Palaeoanthropology Unit had made close examination of the 2 million year old fossil of a hominid known as the Taung Skull (after the region in South Africa where it was discovered in 1924) and found convincing evidence that the child-fossil was killed by a bird as indicated by ragged cuts in the shallow bones behind the eye sockets as well as keyhole marks on the skull, showing that it was attacked by beaks and talons instead of savage teeth and claws. It was first hypothesized that a leopard or a saber-tooth had killed the Taung child. Berger said that he had come up initially with the hypothesis after he found out that there had been a lot monkey skulls found in the same Taung region, having the same wounding marks. Thus, it is now ended what is said to be the longest or oldest murder mystery ever known—a riddle that was first posed by scientists ever since Professor Raymond Dart had discovered it in 1924. This recent discovery gives insights as to the life and times of early humans especially their manner of survival and the harshness of their environment. Scientists now deduced that predators such as the raptors have helped humans learned some important coping mechanisms like walking upright to help distinguish itself from monkeys (the more natural preys of eagles) and to often group together in order to stave off and discourage surprise attacks.

Actually the Taung Skull had generated a far more interesting debate at the time of its discovery. Professor Dart had posed the theory that the Taung child is a member of a class of hominids (Australopithecus africanus) that is the missing link between apes and humans. Many had opposed this proposition after examining that the skull looked more that of a monkey instead of an early human. After the teeth were examined, it was finally generally accepted that indeed that the Taung child was a specie of hominid or an “early human ancestor” but the missing link theory remains controversial up to this time. Of course, one such burning dispute that arose then was the furor created by those who adhere to creationism (as against evolutionism), protesting strongly that the there could really be no such thing “a missing link” since man came from Adam and not from apes.

The most important scientific breakthrough that the Taung Skull had brought to the science world is the discovery that the earliest form of human life is to be found in the African continent instead of Asia or Europe, as what was once thought before by scientists.