in 1924, a skull (later named the taung child) was discovered by a quarry-worker in the nearby buxton-limestone quarry. it was described by raymond dart in 1925 as the type specimen of "australopithecus africanus" after he received a shipment of mostly fossil baboons, but also containing the skull and face of the child. surprisingly, it would be many years before dart would visit taung to determine the exact location of the find. by that time, lime-mining had destroyed much of the area. later "in-situ" excavations were conducted under the direction of phillip tobias and jeffrey mckee of the university of the witwatersrand, who worked at the site from approximately 1989 until 1993. although they failed to find additional hominid specimens, they did recover many important fossil baboons and increased the understanding of the taung geology and taphonomy significantly.