New Scientist
Image: Karmor
Was it a fight to the death? Little Foot, an ancient hominin who lived in what is now South Africa 3.67 million years ago, may have died in a battle for food with a large male baboon-like monkey after falling down a hole.
Little Foot is an extraordinary find. As New Scientist revealed earlier this month, she may belong to a distinct species of hominin – Australopithecus prometheus – that was named in 1948 on the basis of other fossils. Judging by Little Foot’s features, including her flat face, A. prometheus could have been an ancestor to a group of heavily built hominins called Paranthropus which lived alongside early members of our human genus.
Her skeleton was found in Sterkfontein Cave to the northwest of Johannesburg. It is more than 90 per cent complete, and excavating her fragile bones took 14 years.
