scientists have revealed a sophisticated new dating  technique shows that little foot, an important fossil of an  early human forerunner unearthed in the 1990s in south africa,  is roughly 37 million years old 'the age of little foot has been highly debated,' said  geologist darryl granger of purdue university in indiana, whose  research appears in the journal nature the study found little foot, a member of the species  australopithecus prometheus, lived at roughly the same time as  australopithecus afarensis, the species whose most famous  fossil, known as lucy, comes from ethiopia scroll down for video  the researchers analyzed 11 rock samples from around the nearly complete little foot fossil skeleton from thesterkfontein caves to gauge its age  the researchers analyzed 11 rock samples from around the nearly complete little foot fossil skeleton from the sterkfontein caves to gauge its age the species was much bigger and taller than lucy's, with gorilla like facial features but fully upright and very strong with powerful hands for climbing like lucy, little foot was female its hands were proportioned like ours, with a long thumb and  relatively short fingers and palm, unlike the elongated hands of  modern apes its legs were slightly longer than its arms, unlike  modern apes both species blended ape like and human like traits but with different features the researchers analyzed 11 rock samples from around the  nearly complete little foot fossil skeleton from the  sterkfontein caves to gauge its age the findings may have important implications about the  evolutionary relationships among humankind's ancient relatives our species, homo sapiens, appeared roughly 200,000 years  ago earlier members of the human genus, homo, date back more  than 2 million years our genus was predated by other species on  the human family tree including various representatives of the  genus australopithecus members of lucy's species were contemporaries of little  foot, although lucy herself lived about 500,000 years later like lucy, little foot was female the species was much  bigger and taller than lucy's, with gorilla like facial features  but fully upright and very strong with powerful hands for  climbing, according to paleoanthropologists ron clarke and kathy  kuman of the university of the witwatersrand in johannesburg the face of little foot, which has now been accurately dated for the first time its hands were proportioned like ours, with a long thumb and  relatively short fingers and palm, unlike the elongated hands of  modern apes its legs were slightly longer than its arms, unlike  modern apes clarke and kuman noted similarities in facial structure and  some teeth between little foot and the later human relative  paranthropus, indicating little foot's species may have been  ancestral to paranthropus or a close cousin the new date for little foot indicates lucy's species was  not the only one that could have given rise to later members of  the human family tree, clarke and kuman said 'the fact, therefore, that we have at least two  (australopithecus) species living at the same time in different  parts of africa, (about) 367 million years ago, raises the  question of how many other species there may have been which  have not yet been discovered,' clarke and kuman said by email the team used purdue's prime lab's powerful accelerator mass spectrometer and a new detector, called a gas filled magnet detector, to measure the radioisotopes 'we succeeded in our measurement, but we were surprised the dates were so old,' said darryl granger, a professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences at purdue the team used purdue's prime lab's powerful accelerator mass spectrometer and a new detector, called a gas filled magnet detector, to measure the radioisotopes 'we succeeded in our measurement, but we were surprised the dates were so old,' granger said 'we double and triple checked our results, running the measurement again and again' the gas filled magnet creates a different charge on the two radioisotopes and throws the magnesium 26 on a different path with a curvature that misses the detector this lowers the magnesium ratio and increases the aluminum 26 count in the sample that makes it to the detector, which results in a much smaller margin of error in the measurement some of the other material found at the site: stone tools found at a different level of the sterkfontein cave also were dated at 218 million years old, making them among the oldest known stone tools in south africa the gas filled magnet detector was originally to be used to analyze samples of solar wind collected by the genesis spacecraft unfortunately, the space capsule carrying the samples crashed in 2004 on its return to earth the crash delayed analysis of the genesis samples, but caffee continued to build the detector and it was completed the summer of 2014 caffee has since used it to perform analysis for other projects, including those from the sterkfontein site 'only a few detectors of this kind exist in the world,' caffee said 'we double and triple checked our results, running the measurement again and again' the gas filled magnet creates a different charge on the two radioisotopes and throws the magnesium 26 on a different path with a curvature that misses the detector this lowers the magnesium ratio and increases the aluminum 26 count in the sample that makes it to the detector, which results in a much smaller margin of error in the measurement ron clarke, a professor in the evolutionary studies institute at wits university in south africa holds the little foot skull, among the oldest hominid skeletons ever dated at 367 million years old, according to an advanced dating method  the date places little foot as an older relative of lucy, a famous australopithecus skeleton dated at 32 million years old that was found in ethiopia the gas filled magnet detector was originally to be used to analyze samples of solar wind collected by the genesis spacecraft unfortunately, the space capsule carrying the samples crashed in 2004 on its return to earth the crash delayed analysis of the genesis samples, but caffee continued to build the detector and it was completed the summer of 2014 the new findings suggest little foot roamed the earth at around the same time as the famed 32 million year old lucy, an australopithecus afarensis   shown in a reconstruction above when discovered in hadar, ethiopia, lucy was the only skeleton of the species known; she would've stood 35 feet (about a meter) tall currently, more than 300 individuals of this species, which lived between about 385 million and 295 million years ago, have been uncovered  caffee has since used it to perform analysis for other projects, including those from the sterkfontein site 'only a few detectors of this kind exist in the world,' caffee said 'one of the reasons i came to purdue was to be a part of the revolutionary science that can be done when such resources are applied to challenging problems these results highlight what can be accomplished through a collaboration that spans multiple disciplines it couldn't have happened without the unique skills and resources each person brought to the table' inrap's french researcher laurent bruxelles shows little foot, a fossil with both ape like and human features found in a cave at the sterkfontein site, near johannesburg the 'cradle of life' is one of eight world heritage sites in south africa  in 2008 the 47,000 hectare site site yielded the  discovery of australopithecus sediba   thought to be an early human  ancestor that combines simian and modern human characteristics  the world renowned sterkfontein caves is home to the oldest and most continuous paleaontological dig in the world it is also the site of discovery of the famous pre human skull affectionately known as 'mrs ples', and the almost complete hominid skeleton called 'little foot' granger's original attempt was the first time aluminum 26 and beryllium 10 radioisotopic dating had been used to determine the age of a fossil he developed the method in 1997 and first used it to study changes in mountains, rivers and other geological formations because of their very slow rate of decay, these particular radioisotopes allow dating to reach back millions of years, much further in history than the more commonly known carbon 14 dating that can only stretch back about 50,000 years, he said only a small amount of the radioisotopes remain in the quartz after millions of years, and it can only be measured by the ultrasensitive analysis of accelerator mass spectrometry 'we had given up and nearly walked away from the project thinking we had failed,' granger said 'then the new detector was completed, and we thought we would give it one last try' sorry we are not currently accepting comments on this article
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