This is the 3.32 million-year-old Australopithecus afarensis foot from Dikika, Ethiopia, superimposed over a footprint from a human toddler jeremy desilva and associate professor of anothropology

"for the primary time, we have an excellent window into what on foot was like for a 2½-12 months-vintage, greater than 3 million years ago," says lead author, jeremy desilva, an associate professor of anthropology at dartmouth college, who's one of the world's fundamental authorities at the feet of our earliest ancestors. "that is the maximum complete foot of an ancient juvenile ever discovered."

the tiny foot, approximately the size of a human thumb, is part of a almost entire three.32-million-year-old skeleton of a younger woman australopithecus afarensis found in 2002 within the dikika location of ethiopia with the aid of zeresenay (zeray) alemseged, a professor of organismal biology and anatomy on the university of chicago and senior author of the look at. alemseged is across the world known as a main paleontologist on the observe of human origins and human evolution.

"located at a crucial time and the cusp of being human, australopithecus afarensis changed into extra derived than ardipithecus (a facultative biped) but now not but an obligate strider like homo erectus. the dikika foot adds to the wealth of understanding on the mosaic nature of hominin skeletal evolution" explained alemseged.

given that the fossil of the tiny foot is the same species because the famous lucy fossil and was found within the identical location, it is not surprising that the dikika child changed into erroneously classified "lucy's infant" through the popular press, even though this youngster lived greater than 2 hundred,000 years earlier than lucy.

in studying the fossil foot's remarkably preserved anatomy, the studies crew strived to reconstruct what life might had been like years in the past for this toddler and how our ancestors survived. they examined what the foot could were used for, the way it developed and what it tells us approximately human evolution. the fossil file indicates that these ancient ancestors were pretty precise at taking walks on  legs. "taking walks on two legs is an indicator of being human. but, taking walks poorly in a panorama full of predators is a recipe for extinction," defined desilva.

at 2½ years vintage, the dikika infant turned into already walking on  legs, however there are hints within the fossil foot that she changed into still spending time inside the trees, hanging directly to her mother as she foraged for food. primarily based at the skeletal shape of the child's foot, specifically, the base of the large toe, the children likely spent extra time within the bushes than adults. "if you had been dwelling in africa 3 million years in the past with out fire, without systems, and without any method of protection, you'll better be able arise in a tree when the solar goes down," added desilva. "these findings are critical for understanding the dietary and ecological edition of these species and are steady with our previous studies on different parts of the skeleton in particular, the shoulder blade," alemseged mentioned.