The Taung Child (Australopithecus africanus), the Plio-Pleistocene boundary and a supernova hypothesis

The Taung Child is a fossilised hominin skull and jaw from the North West Province in South Africa.One hundred years ago it was described by Raymond Dart as the type specimen of Australopithecus africanus, a distant human relative.On the basis of biochronology, it has recently been estimated to be 2.58 million years old.This date coincides with the Plio-Pleistocene boundary.In terms of a supernova hypothesis, it is proposed that global cooling between about 3 and 2.6 million years ago is related to factors associated with a supernova less than 100 parsecs from the solar system.