Athena Review Image Archive ™
Mrs. Ples skull of Australopithecus africanus
Skull of adult A. africanus from Sterkfontein cave in South Africa (photo: Transvaal Mus.)
In 1947 Robert Broom and John T. Robinson found a nearly complete skull of an adult hominin in a cave near Sterkfontein, South Africa. The site is about 40 km NW of Johannesburg in a limestone region of the Transvaal. The skull was nicknamed "Mrs. Ples" from the name Plesianthropus transvaalensis ("near-man from the Transvaal"), that Broom initially gave the skull. It is now considered part of the species Australopithecus africanus (cat. # STS 5.[1], Collection of the Transvaal Museum, Northern Flagship Institute, Pretoria, South Africa.)
Lacking upper teeth and mandible, this is still the most complete skull of an Australopithecus africanus ever found in South Africa. Mrs. Ples, whose cranial capacity is about 485 cubic centimetres, was one of the first fossils (along with the Taung child skull found by Dart in 1925) to reveal that upright walking had evolved well before any significant growth in brain size. Based on tooth analysis, the fossil is considered that of an adult female. The fossil has been dated by a combination of palaeomagnetism and uranium-lead techniques to ca. 2.05 million years ago.
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