Editing Australopithecus (section)

===Research history===
[[File:Australopithecus africanus Taung face (University of Zurich).JPG|thumb|left|[[Taung Child]]'s skull]]
The first ''Australopithecus'' specimen, the [[type specimen]], was discovered in 1924 in a lime quarry by workers at [[Taung]], South Africa. The specimen was studied by the Australian anatomist [[Raymond Dart]], who was then working at the [[University of the Witwatersrand]] in [[Johannesburg]]. The fossil skull was from a three-year-old [[bipedal]] primate (nicknamed [[Taung Child]]) that he named ''[[Australopithecus africanus]]''. The first report was published in ''[[Nature (journal)|Nature]]'' in February 1925. Dart realised that the fossil contained a number of humanoid features, and so he came to the conclusion that this was an early human ancestor.<ref name="historyofstudy">{{cite book|title= Human Evolution: An Illustrated Introduction |last=Lewin |first=Roger |chapter=The Australopithecines |year=1999 |publisher= Blackwell Science |isbn=0632043091 |pages=112–113}}</ref> Later, Scottish paleontologist [[Robert Broom]] and Dart set out to search for more early hominin specimens, and several more ''A. africanus'' remains from various sites. Initially, [[anthropology|anthropologists]] were largely hostile to the idea that these discoveries were anything but apes, though this changed during the late 1940s.<ref name="historyofstudy" />

In 1950, evolutionary biologist [[Ernst Walter Mayr]] said that all bipedal apes should be classified into the genus ''Homo'', and considered renaming ''Australopithecus'' to ''Homo transvaalensis''.<ref name="Schwartz2015">{{cite journal|author1=Schwartz, Jeffrey H.|author2=Tattersall, Ian|date=2015|title=Defining the genus Homo|journal=[[Science (journal)|Science]]|volume=349|issue=931|pages=931–932|bibcode=2015Sci...349..931S|doi=10.1126/science.aac6182|pmid=26315422|s2cid=206639783}}</ref> However, the contrary view taken by J.T. Robinson in 1954, excluding australopiths from ''Homo'', became the prevalent view.<ref name="Schwartz2015" /> The first australopithecine fossil discovered in eastern Africa was an ''A. boisei'' skull excavated by [[Mary Leakey]] in 1959 in [[Olduvai Gorge]], [[Tanzania]]. Since then, the Leakey family has continued to excavate the gorge, uncovering further evidence for australopithecines, as well as for ''[[Homo habilis]]'' and ''[[Homo erectus]]''.<ref name="historyofstudy" /> The scientific community took 20 more years to widely accept ''Australopithecus'' as a member of the human family tree.

In 1997, an almost complete ''Australopithecus'' skeleton with skull was found in the [[Sterkfontein caves]] of [[Gauteng]], South Africa. It is now called "[[Little Foot]]" and it is around 3.7 million years old. It was named ''[[Australopithecus prometheus]]''<ref>Bruxelles L., Clarke R. J., Maire R., Ortega R., et Stratford D. – 2014. – Stratigraphic analysis of the Sterkfontein StW 573 Australopithecus skeleton and implications for its age. [[Journal of Human Evolution]],</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=New stratigraphic research makes Little Foot the oldest complete Australopithecus |url=http://phys.org/news/2014-03-stratigraphic-foot-oldest-australopithecus.html}}</ref> which has since been placed within ''A. africanus''. Other fossil remains found in the same cave in 2008 were named ''[[Australopithecus sediba]]'', which lived 1.9 million years ago<!-- , were found in [[Malapa Fossil Site, Cradle of Humankind|Malapa cave]] in South Africa. -->. ''A. africanus'' probably evolved into ''A. sediba'', which some scientists think may have evolved into ''H. erectus'',<ref>{{cite news |url= https://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/09/science/09fossil.html |title=New Hominid Species Discovered in South Africa |newspaper=The New York Times |author=Celia W. Dugger |author2=John Noble Wilford |date=April 8, 2010}}</ref> though this is heavily disputed.

In 2003, Spanish writer [[Camilo José Cela Conde]] and evolutionary biologist [[Francisco J. Ayala]] proposed resurrecting the genus ''Praeanthropus'' to house ''[[Orrorin]]'', ''A. afarensis'', ''A. anamensis'', ''A. bahrelghazali'', and ''A. garhi'',<ref name="Cela-CondeAyala2003">{{Cite journal | last1 = Cela-Conde | first1 = C. J.| last2 = Ayala | first2 = F. J. | title = Genera of the human lineage | doi = 10.1073/pnas.0832372100 | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | volume = 100 | issue = 13 | pages = 7684–7689 | year = 2003 | pmid = 12794185| pmc = 164648| bibcode = 2003PNAS..100.7684C| doi-access = free}}</ref> but this genus has been largely dismissed.<ref name=Tattersall2017>{{cite journal|last=Tattersall|first=I.|author-link=Ian Tattersall|year=2017|title=Species, genera, and phylogenetic structure in the human fossil record: a modest proposal|journal=Evolutionary Anthropology: Issues, News, and Reviews|volume=26|issue=3|pages=116–118|doi=10.1002/evan.21523|pmid=28627785|s2cid=43487900|quote=Forms such as ''Ardipithecus'', ''Sahelanthropus'', and ''Orrorin'' have also been admitted to the pantheon, though this has clearly been facilitated by their great age. And in a nod to history, the venerable genus Paranthropus has been grandfathered in for use by those who think it useful. But except for the widely dismissed revival of Praeanthropus, there has been little real rethinking of the hugely minimalist hominid taxonomy, generic as well as specific, that Mayr foisted on us all those years ago...}}</ref>