Meet Little Foot
Since 1999, the Bloubank Valley in South Africa has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as “The Cradle of Humankind”, and for good reason: one third of all the fossil hominids currently known in the world were found there. To the north-west of Johannesburg, the prolific site of Sterkfontein has recently, and once again, created a sensation in the scientific world with the discovery of the nearly complete skeleton of an Australopithecus, nicknamed “Little Foot”.
A surprising discovery
Taking many twists and turns, the discovery of Little Foot is so extraordinary that it will always be remembered as a highpoint in the history of paleoanthropology.
The age of Little Foot
It is not easy to determine the age of Little Foot and several analyses have yielded contradicting dates between 4 and 2 million years. Starting in 2007, at the request of Ron Clarke, a team of French scientists studied the formation processes of Sterkfontein cave. Their work led to one clear certainty : Little Foot is 3.67 million years old.