Scientists say they have solved the mystery of the Burtele foot, a set of 3.4 million-year-old bones found in Ethiopia in 2009. The fossils, along with others unearthed more recently, have now been ...

In 1976, paleoanthropologist Mary Leakey discovered the oldest known hominin footprints. The footprints, in Laetoli, Tanzania, have been dated to around 3.66 million years ago and are thought to have ...

South Africa’s initial claim to be humanity’s home goes back almost a hundred years. In 1924, anatomist Raymond Dart found a skull of a juvenile primate among a box of fossil-bearing rocks sent to him ...

When a small set of ancient foot bones turned up in Ethiopia years ago, the fossils raised more questions than answers. The pieces were odd enough to stand out from anything scientists had seen from ...

Here’s what you’ll learn when you read this story: Lucy might be one of the most iconic human ancestors, but she had a neighboring species that has gone unidentified—until now. The foot from this ...

(L)Haile-Selassie and his crew members in the field. (R) The Burtele Foot with its elements in the anatomical position.Stephanie Melillo, Mercyhurst University/Yohannes Haile-Selassie/ASU In a ...

Scientists have solved the mystery of 3.4 million-year-old fossils called the "Burtele Foot" discovered in Ethiopia in 2009, finding they belonged to an enigmatic human ancestor that lived alongside ...

Scientific evidence from the last decade continues to correct the classical model of human origin. Australopithecus Afarensis, the species to which the legendary Lucy belonged, discovered in 1974, was ...

About 3.4 million years ago, in what is now the Afar region of Ethiopia, at least two different kinds of early human relatives walked the same landscape. The new paper reports additional jaws and ...

Researchers have finally assigned a strange 3.4-million-year-old foot to Australopithecus deyiremeda, confirming that Lucy’s species wasn’t alone in ancient Ethiopia. This hominin had an opposable big ...