FRANCE: When scientists first unearthed a remarkably preserved Australopithecus skeleton in a South African cave system in 1994, they likely had no idea that it would be one of the greatest archaeological discoveries in recent times. At the time of its historic unveiling in 1998, the specimen, dubbed “Little Foot”, was considered to be one of the most complete early hominid skeletons ever discovered — and thanks to new radioisotopic technology, it’s now considered to be one of the oldest as well. On Wednesday, a team of researchers from Purdue University in Indiana, the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, the University of New Brunswick in Canada, and the University of Toulouse in France released a statement in the journal Nature, indicating that the hominid was much older than previously assumed — Little Foot was, in fact, around 3.67 million years old, making it the earliest known human relative to date.
Australopithecus, an early ancestor to modern day humans, has made the headlines before: in 1974, archaeologists unearthed the now-famous “Lucy” in the Awash Valley in Ethiopia, dating the specimen back nearly 3.2 million years. Long thought to be one of the oldest human relatives ever discovered in the fossil record, Lucy’s reign ended on April 1 as the Little Foot research team made its exciting announcement.
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