![]() The scientists compared the creature’s shoulder parts to apes, hominins and humans. Humans, apes shared skeletal similarities for longer than previously assumed In human evolution, he said, these parts had to change form before our ancestors could live life free of trees, walk the open savannah and use their arms for functions other than supporting the weight of the individual. Those bones provide telltale clues of how an animal moves. The USC-led research team zeroed in on the shoulder assemblies because Little Foot provides the oldest and most intact example of this anatomy ever found. While not as widely known as the Lucy skeleton, another Australopithecus individual unearthed in East Africa in the 1970s, Carlson said Little Foot is older and more complete. Researchers have spent years excavating it from its rock encasement and subjecting it to high-tech analysis. Called “Little Foot” because the first bones recovered consisted of a few small foot bones, the remains were discovered in a cave in South Africa in the 1990s. The creature, probably an old female, stood about 4 feet tall with long legs suitable for bipedal motion when it lived some 3.67 million years ago. The Little Foot fossil is a rare specimen because it’s a near-complete skeleton of an Australopithecus individual much older than most other human ancestors. The process is somewhat akin to the story of blind men and the elephant, each examining one part in coordination with others to explain the whole of something that’s not fully understood. ![]() The journal devoted a special issue to Little Foot analyses from a global research group, which looked at other parts of the creature’s skeleton. The USC-led study, which also involved researchers at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Liverpool and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, among others, was published today in the Journal of Human Evolution. The apelike characteristics will likely attract considerable intrigue as science teams around the world have been examining different parts of the skeleton to find clues to human origins. “When we compare the shoulder assembly with living humans and apes, it shows that Little Foot’s shoulder was probably a good model of the shoulder of the common ancestor of humans and other African apes like chimpanzees and gorillas.” Little Foot fossil continues to help researchers explore human evolution “Little Foot is the Rosetta stone for early human ancestors,” he said. Carlson, lead author of the study and associate professor of clinical integrative anatomical sciences at the Keck School of Medicine. The Little Foot fossil provides the best evidence yet of how human ancestors used their arms more than 3 million years ago, said Kristian J. Scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC focused on its so-called pectoral girdle, which includes collarbones, shoulder blades and joints.Īlthough other parts of Little Foot, especially its legs, show humanlike traits for upright walking, the shoulder components are clearly apelike, supporting arms surprisingly well suited for suspending from branches or shimmying up and down trees rather than throwing a projectile or dangling astride the torso like humans. Little Foot’s shoulder assembly proved key to interpreting an early branch of the human evolutionary tree. ![]() (Photo/Paul John Myburgh, Courtesy of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa) The Little Foot skeleton was discovered in the 1990s in a cave in South Africa and is the most intact ancient skeleton of any human ancestor. ![]()
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