Little Foot Gets Digital Face

The fossil, officially designated StW 573, was nicknamed "Little Foot" after the 1994 discovery of four small foot bones by paleoanthropologist Professor Ron Clarke of the University of the Witwatersrand. Clarke and his team then spent two decades on the painstaking process of excavating the skeleton from the concrete-like breccia of the Sterkfontein Caves, northwest of Johannesburg. At approximately 3.67 million years old, Little Foot is older than the well-known "Lucy" fossil, which is dated to 3.2 million years ago. The skeleton is more than 90% complete, making it the most complete *Australopithecus* skeleton ever found and providing a wealth of information on the anatomy and locomotion of our early ancestors. This level of completeness is significantly greater than that of Lucy, whose skeleton is about 40% complete. The precise species of Little Foot is still a subject of scientific debate. While its discoverer, Ron Clarke, has argued it represents *Australopithecus prometheus*, other researchers have suggested it could be a member of *Australopithecus africanus* or an entirely new, previously unknown species. The digital reconstruction was necessary because the skull was crushed and distorted after millions of years under rock and sediment. An international team led by paleoanthropologist Amélie Beaudet used high-resolution X-ray scans at the Diamond Light Source synchrotron facility in the UK to virtually separate and reassemble the fragile facial bones, a task considered too risky to perform physically. Initial comparisons of the reconstructed face suggest some features, particularly around the eye sockets, show a resemblance to fossils from East Africa. This finding could point to a migration of hominins from East to Southern Africa over 3.5 million years ago and suggests a more connected evolutionary landscape across the continent.