Subtle scanning know-how is revealing intriguing secrets and techniques about Little Foot, the outstanding fossil of an early human forerunner that inhabited South Africa 3.67 million years in the past throughout a important juncture in our evolutionary historical past.
Scientists mentioned on Tuesday they examined key elements of the practically full and well-preserved fossil at Britain’s nationwide synchrotron facility, Diamond Mild Supply. The scanning targeted upon Little Foot’s cranial vault – the higher a part of her braincase – and her decrease jaw, or mandible.
The researchers gained perception not solely into the biology of Little Foot’s species but additionally into the hardships that this particular person, an grownup feminine, encountered throughout her life.
Little Foot’s species blended ape-like and human-like traits and is taken into account a doable direct ancestor of people. College of the Witwatersrand paleoanthropologist Ron Clarke, who unearthed the fossil within the Nineties within the Sterkfontein Caves northwest of Johannesburg and is a co-author of the brand new research, has recognized the species as Australopithecus prometheus.
“Within the cranial vault, we might establish the vascular canals within the spongious bone which can be in all probability concerned in mind thermoregulation – how the mind cools down,” mentioned College of Cambridge paleoanthropologist Amélie Beaudet, who led the research revealed within the journal e-Life.
“That is very attention-grabbing as we didn’t have a lot details about that system,” Beaudet added, noting that it possible performed a key position within the threefold mind measurement enhance from Australopithecus to trendy people.
Little Foot’s tooth additionally had been revealing.
“The dental tissues are rather well preserved. She was comparatively previous since her tooth are fairly worn,” Beaudet mentioned, although Little Foot’s exact age has not but been decided.
The researchers noticed defects within the tooth enamel indicative of two childhood bouts of physiological stress, resembling illness or malnutrition.
