Oldest skeleton similar to a human body – ElTiempo.com

An advanced dating method allowed us to determine that the remains of Australopithecus dubbed ‘Little Foot’ (Little Pie) are similar to those of ‘Lucy’ time, the famous australopiteca which is the presumed ancestor human, as published today in the journal ‘Nature’.

The nearly complete skeleton of ‘Little Foot’, found 21 years ago in the cave of Sterkfontein, South Africa, lived ago about 3.67 million years, while ‘Lucy’, whose remains first demonstrated that the ancestors of man could walk upright, lived about 3.2 million years ago.

The new dating of the remains was thanks to the analysis of minerals where the cave was found hominid. The international team of researchers who published the study emphasizes that although ‘Lucy’ and ‘Little Foot’ lived at the same time, have different characteristics.

Sterkfontein skeleton belongs to the species Australopithecus Prometheus, which differs from the Australopithecus africanus, which ‘Lucy’ belongs, because it has a larger body size, a flatter skull and a more protruding teeth.

The anthropologist Ronald J. Clarke dubbed ‘Little foot’ the skeleton since the first remains that appeared were the feet. According to the new date, this hominid lived in the same era as the first Australopithecus africanus Tanzania and Ethiopia.

The Lucy skeleton was found on November 24, 1974 during an anthropological mission directed by Donald Johanson in Ethiopia. The finding allowed to prove first that the ancestors of man could walk upright over 3 million years ago.

Al skeleton was given the name of ‘Lucy’ for a song Beatles ‘Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds’, which sounded at the time that paleontologists discovered the bones. Excavations to know more about ‘Little Foot’ continue in the South African cave where it was found.

Dating the remains has been a great challenge, scientists say, because the cave has experienced many episodes of sedimentation and erosion in more than three million years. Darryl Granger, of Purdue University, Indiana (USA) and colleagues have calculated the new date measuring levels of radiogenic isotopes of aluminum and beryllium in quartz surrounding the skeleton when it was found.

These isotopes are used in the study of rocks and minerals and act as watches to know the time to going back. The scientists conclude that given the large morphological differences between the two Austarlopithecus, ‘Lucy’ and ‘Little Foot’, this finding raises new questions about the diversity, geographic distribution and relationships among species of hominids in Africa.

EFE