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Author Topic:   Little Foot - older than Lucy and more complete
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1405 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 5 of 6 (825077)
12-07-2017 11:54 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Tangle
12-06-2017 2:45 PM


Little Foot - australopithicus
A new humonid fossil has been found, older than Lucy and a different species.
Little Foot skeleton unveiled in South Africa - BBC News
As I recall it was called little foot because the foot bones were found first. It has taken 20 years to get the soft bone out of the concrete like rock. They aren't sure of the species classification:
quote:
(wiki): "Little Foot" (Stw 573) is the nickname given to a nearly complete Australopithecus fossil skeleton found in 1994—1998 in the cave system of Sterkfontein, South Africa.[1] The nickname "little foot" was given to the fossil in 1995. From the structure of the four ankle bones they were able to ascertain that the owner was able to walk upright. ...
... After 1998, when a part of the skull had been discovered and uncovered, Clarke pointed out now that the fossils were probably associated with the genus Australopithecus, but whose 'unusual features' do not match any Australopithecus species previously described.[10]
Clarke now suggests that Little Foot does not belong to the species Australopithecus afarensis or Australopithecus africanus, but to a unique Australopithecus species previously found at Makapansgat and Sterkfontein Member Four, Australopithecus prometheus.[11][12]
Following the discovery of the approximately two million year old Australopithecus sediba, which had been discovered just 15 km away from Sterkfontein in the Malapa northern cave in the year 2008,[13] the assumption was made that an ancestor of Australopithecus could be sediba. As with any new discovery, there is always an argument between the lumpers and the splitters.[14]
Note that this foot was predicted in 1935 by Dudley Morton
It will be interesting if more foot bones have been recovered to compare them as well.
As time passes I am less inclined to "split" and more inclined to "lump" -- in part because of the mosaic of evolutionary traits.
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This message is a reply to:
 Message 1 by Tangle, posted 12-06-2017 2:45 PM Tangle has not replied

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