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JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - An American researcher believes he has solved the mystery of how one of the most important human ancestors died nearly 2 million years ago: An eagle killed the 3 1/2 -year old ape-man known as the Taung child.
The discovery suggests small human ancestors known as hominids had to survive being hunted not only by large predators on the ground but by fearsome raptors that swooped from the sky, said Lee Berger, a senior paleoanthropologist at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand.
''These types of discoveries give us real insight into the past lives of these human ancestors, the world they lived in and the things they feared,'' Berger said in documents accompanying a presentation at a conference Thursday.
''These are the stresses that formed the human mind and made us one of the most successful animals on the face of the planet.''
The discovery of the partial skull of a juvenile ape-man in South Africa's North West Province in 1924 revealed a human ancestor species called Australopithecus africanus, which was proposed to be the ''missing link'' between apes and humans.
The child's death has been blamed on a leopard or saber-toothed cat, which are known to have preyed on hominids. But 10 years ago, Berger and fellow researcher Ron Clarke submitted the theory that the hunter was a predatory bird, similar to today's African crowned eagle.
Berger and Clarke argued the skulls and bones of monkeys and other animal fossils found at the Taung site, about 300 miles southwest of Johannesburg, showed evidence of damage by eagles. Other researchers agreed eagles were likely preying on small animals at the site, but contended ape-men were too large, sophisticated and organized to be taken by a bird.
Five months ago, researchers from Ohio State University submitted what Berger called the most comprehensive study to date of eagle damage on bones. Berger was among those asked to review the paper for the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
The study of primate remains from modern crowned eagle nests in Ivory Coast's Tai forest showed raptors routinely hunt primates much larger than themselves by swooping down and piercing their skulls with their back talons. There is even a documented case of an eagle killing a child, Berger said.
The Ohio State paper identified key features that distinguished damage caused by eagles from that of other predators. They include the flaps of depressed bone on top of the skull caused by the birds' talon and keyhole-shaped cuts on the side made by their beaks.
But they also identified features previously never described: puncture marks and ragged incisions in the base of the eye sockets, made when eagles rip out the eyes of dead monkeys with their talons and beaks to get at the brains.