Ancient ape ruled out of man's ancestral line [ Sterkfontein "Little Foot" ]

PhsyOrg ^ | Thursday, December 7, 2006 | University of Leeds

[SunkenCiv]

Ancient remains, once thought to be a key link in the evolution of mankind, have now been shown to be 400,000 years too young to be a part of man’s family tree. The remains of the apeman, dubbed Little Foot, were discovered in a cave complex at Sterkfontein by a local South African team in 1997. Its bones preserved in sediment layers, it is the most complete hominid fossil skeleton ever found. Little Foot is of the genus Australopithecus, thought by some to be part of the ancestral line which led directly to man. But research by Dr Jo Walker and Dr Bob Cliff of the University of Leeds School of Earth and Environment, with Dr Alf Latham of Liverpool University's School of Archaeology, Classics and Egyptology, shows the remains are more than a million years younger than earlier estimates. The team used uranium lead chronology to date the remains. Working on extracts of stalagmite deposits from immediately above and below the body, they dated the skeleton at around 2.2 million years old... The first recognisable stone tools appeared in Africa around 2.6 million years ago, but they were not made by Australopiths. Rather it is thought the first tool maker was Homo habilis, whose evolution is believed to have led directly to man. Rather than being older than Homo habilis – and a possible direct ancestor – Little Foot is more likely a distant cousin.

[SunkenCiv]

Ordinarily I avoid posting topics (or pinging to them) which are bound to become cr/evo bloodbaths, but this one is pretty interesting.

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Little foot,' an almost complete hominid skeleton

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[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

whoops, already posted, but it didn't show up in searches:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1750246/posts

Sterkfontein showed up in a Google search for FR:

http://www.FreeRepublic.com/forum/a3b47d7b94f92.htm#1
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/691468/posts?page=12#12
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/1639463/posts?page=7#7

[GoLightly]

Thanx for the ping & I agree, it's interesting.

[SunkenCiv]

My pleasure.

[Physicist]

The story of Little Foot's discovery is astonishing. A paleontologist was looking through some bone fragments from Sterkfontein and recognized some fragments as hominid. He sent his assistants to the cave with a broken end of a tibia, and they found the matching piece protruding from the cave wall, which was how the skeleton was found.

The sheer audacity of even attempting to find the matching piece in that cave boggles the mind.

[Physicist]

The fact that Little Foot is not himself a human ancestor illustrates evolution every bit as well as if he were. In the past, there were several species of hominid alive at the same time. The modern uniqueness of Homo sapiens makes it seem like we are far apart from the rest of the Tree of Life, but that was not always the case.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for those replies, and also for not asking me why this topic was moved from chat. :')

[SunkenCiv]

This topic was posted 12/08/2006, re-ping.

[Red Badger]

But Bigfoot is?.....................

[SunkenCiv]

Here’s the last Wayback Machine archive version from 2006:

https://web.archive.org/web/20060317222302/http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b47d7b94f92.htm