THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
In pursuit of knowledge, the evolution of humanity ranks with the origins of life and the universe. And yet, except when an exciting find hits the headlines, palaeoanthropology and its related fields have gained far less scientific support and funding—particularly for scientists and institutions based in the African countries where so many landmark discoveries have occurred.
One of the first was made a century ago in Taung, South Africa, by mineworkers who came across the cranium of a 2.8 million-year-old child