Special issue | The Taung Child then and now: Commemorating its centenary in a postcolonial age

At the South African Journal of Science we are delighted to have been given the opportunity to host a special issue commemorating the centenary of the publication of the discovery of the Taung Child – a major milestone in science history.

We are grateful for the collegial and steadfast work of the Guest Editors, Rebecca Ackermann, Robyn Pickering, Yonatan Sahle and Lauren Schroeder. As with other special issues, we have paid particular attention to the independence of review processes, with review processes undertaken by our usual editorial team. We did ask the Guest Editors for suggestions of reviewers and expert readers, but we did not necessarily follow their suggestions – we considered these as we would consider suggestions from authors themselves.

We are very pleased, therefore, not only to be publishing a special issue on very important issues for science in our context, but also that, with the kind cooperation of the Guest Editors, we are able confidently to state that all papers in the special issue (and those that were not accepted) were subject to the same levels of rigorous assessment as all other submissions to our Journal.

We thank the Guest Editors for convening and guest editing this special issue, Associate Editor Jemma Finch and Associate Editor Mentee Tim Forssman, and our in-house team (Phumlani Mncwango, Nadia Grobler and Linda Fick) for their sterling work on this issue. It has been a pleasure to work with them.

Leslie Swartz, Editor-in-Chief