Paris -A team of international researchers are estimating the age of ‘Little Foot’ which is the new dating of South Africa’s most famous hominid fossil to be more than previously thought. The age which has been largely debated upon for over two decades had been estimated to be as broad as from 1.5 to four million years.
The new age estimate of this specimen has been placed at about 3.67 million years old the same age that has been associated with Australopithecus afarensis which is a much more studied species the likes of the famous ‘Lucy”.
“Lucy” is the Ethiopian hominid known to have the most outstanding claim on being our earliest-recognized ancestor. Both “Lucy” and “little foot” are said to have blended well into ape-like and human-like traits even though they had different features. And how did the researchers make an estimate of “Little Foot’s” age?
It is said that they analyzed 11 rock samples which were found around the complete Little Foot fossil skeleton and findings highlighted important implications on the evolutionary relationships that took place among the relatives of human kinds ancient.
Paleoanthropologist Ronald J Clarke is the person behind the discovery of Little Foot way back in 1994. He found the specimen alongside a series of bone fragments from a diminutive left foot which he immediately recognized as distinctly hominid. Upon returning to the excavation site, he found more fragments the likes of pelvic bones, limbs, and a complete skull which apparently belonged to the same individual.
The two methods used to date however have disagreed. Once method computes the extent of cosmic rays that have hit the sediment while the other deals with the radioactive decay of uranium in calcite cave formations.
A co – author of the study Darryl Granger has cited that it is difficult to date cave sediments and their fossils. This is besides the fact that the cave sediments can turn out to be complicated especially if they fall into multiple entrances, collapse into lower sections and overlap each other.