<P> The type specimen for genus Australopithecus 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 that he named Australopithecus africanus . The first report was published in 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 ancestor of humans . Later, Scottish paleontologist Robert Broom and Dart set about to search for more early hominin specimens, and at several sites they found more A. africanus remains, as well as fossils of a species Broom named Paranthropus (which would now be recognised as P. robustus). Initially, anthropologists were largely hostile to the idea that these discoveries were anything but apes, though this changed during the late 1940s . </P> <P> The first australopithecine discovered in eastern Africa was a skull belonging to an A. boisei that was excavated in 1959 in the Olduvai Gorge in Tanzania by Mary Leakey . Since then, the Leakey family have continued to excavate the gorge, uncovering further evidence for australopithecines, as well as for Homo habilis and Homo erectus . The scientific community took 20 years to widely accept Australopithecus as a member of the family tree . </P> <P> Then, 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 probably around three million years old . It was named Australopithecus prometheus 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 . A. africanus probably evolved into A. sediba, which some scientists think may have evolved into H. erectus, though this is heavily disputed . </P> <P> A taxonomy of the Australopithecus within the great apes is assessed as follows, with Paranthropus and Homo emerging among the Australopthecus . Australopithecus with conventional definitions is assessed to be highly paraphyletic, i.e. it is not a natural group. . The exact phylogeny within Australopithecus is still highly controversial . Approximate radiation dates of daughter clades is shown in Millions of years ago (Mya). Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, and Ardipithecus, possibly sisters to Australopithecus, are not shown here . </P>

Where have most fossils of australopithecus been found