South Africas oldest, and the worlds most complete Australopithecus skeleton ever found, introduce
South Africa’s oldest, and the world’s most complete Australopithecus skeleton ever found, introduced to the world
SOUTH AFRICA’S STATUS AS A MAJOR CRADLE IN THE AFRICAN NURSERY OF HUMANKIND HAS BEEN REINFORCED WITH TODAY’S UNVEILING OF “LITTLE FOOT”, THE COUNTRY’S OLDEST, VIRTUALLY COMPLETE FOSSIL HUMAN ANCESTOR.
Little Foot is the only known virtually complete Australopithecus fossil discovered to date. It is by far the most complete skeleton of a human ancestor older than 1.5 million years ever found. It is also the oldest fossil hominid in southern Africa, dating back 3.67 million years. The unveiling will be the first time that the completely cleaned and reconstructed skeleton can be viewed by the national and international media.
Discovered by Professor Ron Clarke from the Evolutionary Studies Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa, the fossil was given the nickname of “Little Foot” by Prof. Phillip Tobias, based on Clarke’s initial discovery of four small footbones. Its discovery is expected to add a wealth of knowledge about the appearance, full skeletal anatomy, limb lengths and locomotor abilities of one of the species of our early ancestral relatives.
“This is one of the most remarkable fossil discoveries made in the history of human origins research and it is a privilege to unveil a finding of this importance today,” says Clarke.
After lying undiscovered for more than 3.6 million years deep within the Sterkfontein caves about 40km north-west of Johannesburg, Clarke found several foot bones and lower leg bone fragments in 1994 and 1997 among other fossils that had been removed from rock blasted from the cave years earlier by lime miners. Clarke sent his assistants Stephen Motsumi and Nkwane Molefe into the deep underground cave to search for any possible broken bone surface that might fit with the bones he had discovered in boxes. Within two days of searching, they found such a contact, in July 1997.
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https://www.heritagedaily.com/2017/12/south-africas-oldest-worlds-complete-australopithecus-skeleton-ever-found-introduced-world/117734