3-Million-Year-Old ‘Little Foot’ Fossil Discovered; Researchers Pinpoint Difference from Modern Humans

The University of Southern California researchers recently published results of a groundbreaking study that analyzed a three-million-year-old fossil called 'Little Foot.'

An Express report said, new analysis of the earliest human ancestor of humanity known as the Australopithecus, will provide researchers better insight on the critical moment today's humans split from their ape cousins.

The remarkably well-preserved sample belongs to the Australopithecus family of hominins, one of the oldest evolutionary branches in the family tree of human.

Even this strange-looking fossil may, at an initial glance, seem similar to a modern-day human, a lot of key differences are at likelihoods of the so-called 'wise man' or Homo sapiens.

The California study authors were specifically interested in 'Little Foot's' shoulders, to be more specific, its joints, shoulder blades, and collarbones.

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'Little Foot'

Many of the other limbs of the fossil exhibit human-like features that enabled it to walk upright. However, the shoulders are noticeably ape-like, which has shed new light on the manner these human ancestors were carrying themselves around.

As specified in the report, an evaluation of the bones of the Little Foot presents that the Australopithecus was well-adjusted "to life in the canopy-climbing," suspending and shimmying up and down trees. This is a blunt distinction to the type of shoulders that made speers-throwing such an easy task.

According to the study's lead author, Kristian Carlson, associate professor of clinical integrative anatomical sciences at the Keck School of Medicine, this discovery is among the best evidence to date of the manner the ancestors were using their arms more than three million years back.

He described Little Foot as the Rosetta Stone for the early ancestors of humans. He added when the shoulder is compared the shoulder construction with modern humans and apes, it presents that the shoulder of the Little Foot was possibly a good model of the shoulder of the common human ancestor, as well as other African apes such as gorillas and chimpanzees.

According to a similar Phys.org report, Little Foot is one of the most captivating and unusual fossils scientists have ever studied, partly because of it being nearly complete.

More than 3 Million Years Old

Fossil of the Australopithecus was discovered in a cave system in the Gauteng province of South Africa during taxing excavations between 1995 and 1998.

Researchers called the fossil 'Little Foot' in the mid-1990s after only a few of its bones had proven Australopithecus could walk standing.

Describing the discovery, the researchers said, Little Foot was most probably an old female and was approximately four feet tall. She lived roughly 3.67 million years back during the Late Pliocene.

Such a finding from the study, The pectoral girdle of StW 573 ('Little Foot') and its implications for shoulder evolution in the Hominina and published in the Journal of Human Evolution sheds new light on today's humans' split from apes, as it depicts apes and humans shared skeletal resemblances for much longer than previously perceived.

Carlson explained, they see inconvertible proof in Little Foot that the ancestors' arm at more than three million years ago, remained being used to withstand significant weight during arboreal activities in trees for hanging beneath, or climbing branches.

Related information is shown on Wits University Official's YouTube video below: