Professor Ron Clarke with the skull of Little Foot (Photo: courtesy Mogale City website)

RELATED LINKS: Clarke is slowly unearthing humanity's origins WORKING in difficult conditions deep in the bowels of Sterkfontein Cave, Professor Ron Clarke and his assistants are painstakingly unearthing the full skeleton of Little Foot. Read more Sterkfontein's old bones JOZI doesn't have mountains, it doesn't have a river, but it does have the Sterkfontein Cave. Read more New-look Sterkfontein puts life into fossils ONE of South Africa's most important archaeological sites, the Sterkfontein Cave, opens upgraded new facilities next month to offer a livelier visitor experience. Read more Mbeki opens Maropeng centre MAROPENG, the visitor centre at the Cradle of Humankind, was officially opened by President Thabo Mbeki, who "welcomed everyone home". Read more The Origins Centre - a great Joburg addition FOR an Afrocentric world-class experience, visit the Origins Centre on the Wits campus, a world-class venue with world-class multimedia displays tracing mankind's origins and the development of creativity. Read more

Little Foot cast unveiled at Maropeng One of the oldest - and possibly the most important - fossil finds in the world can be seen by the public in an in situ cast. December 8, 2006 By Michael Tsingo THE world's most intact pre-human fossil - estimated to be more than three million years old - can finally be seen by the public. An in situ cast of Little Foot, which rests in dolomite and chert stones in the Silberberg Grotto in the Sterkfontein Cave, has been unveiled at the Maropeng Visitor Interpretation Centre in the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site. Dubbed Little Foot because scientists realised its body parts were relatively smaller compared with other adult finds, the Australopithecine fossil broke the world record as the most complete fossil skeleton yet discovered. Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa unveiled the cast of the fossil as it lies in the cave on Thursday, 7 December, allowing the public to witness for the first time the great ancestor at the excavation site. Little Foot will lie unlifted until the middle of next year. Shilowa said that the discovery was of paramount importance to the world and that every South African should be proud of it. "Little Foot is without doubt one of South Africa's most highly prized palaeoanthropological discoveries … Furthermore, the skeleton is extremely well preserved, with most of the bones intact and joined in their natural position. All of these qualities make it one of the most significant hominid discoveries on the planet, and one that every South African should be proud of." The research team shows Gauteng Premier Mbhazima Shilowa (far right) and MEC Paul Mashatile (second from left) Little Foot (Photo: courtesy Mogale City website) The excavation of Little Foot began more that a decade ago, after Professor Ron Clarke of the University of the Witwatersrand recognised bones belonging to a pair of hominid feet in boxes of animal fossils in 1994. He concluded it unlikely for two feet of the same specimen to fall into the same cave, unless they were still attached to the skeleton, hence the excavation. In 1997 he sent his two assistants, Nkwane Molefe and Steven Motsumi, into the Silberberg Grotto, where they found a fragment that fitted perfectly with the tibia cast that Clarke had made. With time and painstaking attention to detail the team eventually found the rest of the skeleton. Wits university vice-chancellor Professor Loyiso Nongxa believes that the discovery of Little Foot "gives us a unique opportunity to uncover information about the appearance, locomotion and lifestyle of the Australopithecines and to unlock important secrets about human evolution. As of today, all South Africans and international visitors will be able to view a first edition cast of this fascinating palaeoanthropological find." The Sterkfontein Cave, located about 50 kilometres from Johannesburg, is one of the world's richest excavation sites, where fossils dating back more than two million years have been found. Permission to use web site material Publishers may use material from this site free of charge, as long as: Credit is given to either the "City of Johannesburg website (www.joburg.org.za)" or to "Johannesburg News Agency (www.joburg.org.za)"; If the article is used online, a link is provided to the original article on this website; The name of the article's author is acknowledged; The webmaster is informed of how and where the material is used (fill in this brief online form). Johannesburg News Agency is operated by BIG Media at 011-484-1400 Print this Page E-mail this article to a friend Help using Joburg.org.za