We're getting closer to the critical parting of the ways between hominids and African apes 5 to 7 million years ago. For a long time, we thought the vegetation in southern Africa was savannah. Now we are fairly certain it was tropical forest. It is possible that a change in the climate inspired the apes to come down from the trees to look for food. He found it in a box four years ago.
Carnivores always go for extremities like the feet, the hands, the head.
If the feet were intact, I knew the rest of the skeleton was somewhere in the cave. Dr Clarke's team found a tibia in July last year, but it took them until September this year to find the skull. With help from the geomagnetism laboratory at Liverpool University, the team dated the surrounding rock and antelope remains in a layer of younger rock above the hominid. The fragments of Lucy are 3.2 million years old and the Laetoli footprints are 3.75 million years old. Dr Clarke said much of the hominid remained lodged in Sterkfontein cave, and that tests and further chiselling in the next year would provide more information.