MILLION YEARS 

 



■4 COLD WARM ► 



GLACIAL- 

 INTERGLACIAL 

 CYCLES 



1st NORTHERN HEMISPHERE 

 GLACIATION 



A afncanusi 

 afarensis 



Fig. 1. An early attempt (Brain. 1981b) at a correlation between events in hom- 

 inid evolution and low-temperature episodes. The Terminal Miocene Event is corre- 

 lated with the acquisition of erect posture and with the separation of the African great 

 ape lineage from that of the australopithecines. (The split is not shown here.) The 

 first Northern Hemisphere glaciation is correlated with the separation of the Homo 

 and robust australopithecine lineages. 



Clarke, 1995) that a Crowned Eagle was the predator responsible 

 for killing the Australopithecus africanus child at Taung. In this 

 regard, an interesting report appeared recently (Brightman and Wes- 

 trop, 1999) relating how a Crowned Eagle attacked a five-year-old 

 African girl in Zimbabwe, grabbing her in her shoulder and neck 

 with its talons. Although the eagle flapped furiously, it was pre- 

 vented from taking off with its prey by the fact that the girl managed 

 to grip the wire strands of a fence with both hands and the eagle 

 was killed when it was hit on the head with a stick wielded by an 

 alarmed adult. The child was lucky to survive and this incident 



11 



