Re: New finds at Sterkfontein?

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In article <507@crane.ukc.ac.uk> nrh, N.R.Harrison@ukc.ac.uk writes:
>I just caught a TV news article over here in Britain. I only caught a
>bit of it, and most was a combination of pseudo-science and jingoism
>about missing links. From what I could gather, there have been some new
>finds at Sterkfontein of a africanus foot which is more apelike than
>previous specimens. Has anybody got any further details?

Very few africanus foot specimens have ever been found. There have not
been any medial cuneiforms or 1st metatarsals found. My understanding is
that the fossils indicate an abductable toe. This shouldn't be too
surprising, as A. afarensis also probably had an abductable large toe
(contra Latimer and Lovejoy).

Alex Duncan
Dept. of Anthropology
University of Texas at Austin
Austin, TX 78712-1086
512-471-4206
aduncan@mail.utexas.edu

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